Pixel Ninja is the picture round among the daily Naruto games. A character portrait is hidden behind a heavy blur and zoomed in so that only part of the face and outfit fills the frame, and you have six guesses to say who it is. Every wrong answer sharpens the image, so the fewer guesses you need, the less of the picture you have actually seen.

It is a pure recognition test, which makes it a favourite for fans who know character designs better than trivia. The daily answer depends on the era you pick, Naruto or Shippuden, and on the difficulty tier, and it is never the same character that Narutodle is using that day. Part I shows the younger designs from the original series, while Shippuden uses the timeskip looks, from Akatsuki cloaks to the reanimated shinobi of the Fourth War.

Choose Easy, Hard or Impossible. The portrait starts under a 40-pixel blur. Type at least two letters of a name, pick a character from the list and submit your guess.

Each wrong guess lowers the blur, from 40 to 32, 24, 16 and finally 8 pixels, so by your last attempt the image is soft but recognisable. A correct guess reveals the full artwork. The markers under the image show how many of your six attempts are left, and your guesses are saved, so reloading the page will not reset the board.

If you run out of attempts or give up, the answer is revealed. Each tier is its own once-a-day puzzle that resets at midnight UTC, with its own streak, and signed-in players who solve it are ranked on the daily leaderboard by attempts and time. Yesterday's answer is shown at the top of the page.

Read colour before shape. Hair and clothing colours survive even the heaviest blur. A burst of orange points to Naruto, pink hair to Sakura, and a green jumpsuit to Might Guy or Rock Lee. Red hair narrows things to a short list including Gaara, Karin, Nagato and Kushina, and silver or white hair suggests Kakashi, Kimimaro or Tobirama. A black cloak with red clouds means you are looking at the Akatsuki.

The suggestion list only contains characters from the difficulty tier you are playing. That makes it a handy memory aid: typing a common syllable like 'ka' or 'sa' shows which names are possible today, and anyone missing from the list can be ruled out entirely.

Do not spend your first guess at random. The blur drops after every miss regardless, but the leaderboard rewards fewer attempts, so use the opening guess on the best colour match and let the second, sharper image confirm or correct you. Use the era too: Part I images show genin-era outfits, while Shippuden has flak jackets, longer hair and Edo Tensei variants.