Krillion Scoring Explained: Tiers, Points and Depth

How does Krillion scoring work?

Every valid answer lands on one of six rarity tiers, worth 10 to 100 points: the rarer your answer among today’s players, the higher the tier. Your dive’s depth in meters is simply your total score ×10 — a 260-point dive puts you at 2,600m (we verified the math on a real dive). Invalid or unrecognized answers and expired timers score zero. After seven prompts, your total is rated on the official “bearing” scale from Plankton to One in a Krillion.

Related: How to play · Strategy tips

The six rarity tiers

The in-game ladder, displayed during every dive:

Tier	Points	Sinks you	In-game flavor
Plankton	10	100m	—
Too Clever	15	150m	—
Schooler	30	300m	“Solid — swims with the school.”
Rare	60	600m	—
Deep Cut	85	850m	“True obscurity. Few go this deep.”
One in a Krillion	100	1000m	—

The tier names are the game’s own commentary on crowd behavior: obvious answers are Plankton, and answers that feel clever but have gone mainstream sit one rung up at Too Clever. The deep tiers reward genuinely obscure-but-valid picks.

What scores zero

Two ways to bank nothing on a prompt (both observed in testing):

• The timer expires — after 25 seconds you get “the clock beat you to it.” and +0.
• The answer doesn’t land — an answer that violates the prompt (e.g., a country without the required letter) or isn’t recognized by the validator shows “NOTHING LANDED · +0 PTS”. See the validator guide.

Depth is just score ×10

The HUD tracks DEPTH in meters and SCORE in points, but they are the same number in different units: a Deep Cut (+85) sinks you exactly 850m. The depth ruler maps your position onto real ocean trivia — 332m is the deepest scuba dive ever, the Titanic rests at 3,800m, and a perfect 700-point dive (7× One in a Krillion) would end on the trench floor.

Final bands (“the bearing”)

When the dive completes, your total is rated:

Score	Official rating
0–150	“Plankton. Plenty of ocean left down there.”
151–250	“Schooler. Swimming with the school.”
251–350	“Rare. Below the thermocline. Nice.”
351–449	“Deep cut. Seriously deep dive.”
450+	“One in a krillion. Trench dweller. Absurd.”

You also see how you compare: the result screen shows a percentile — “better than X% of today’s players” — plus your logbook stats (streak, played, average, best). See leaderboards explained.