CritterSnaps

How Scoring Works 🏆

Every critter on CritterSnaps has a score. It’s how we figure out which critters are the cutest of them all!

🐾 Everybody starts with the same score: 1200 points 🐾

When a new critter joins, it gets 1200 points — exactly the same as every other critter. Nobody gets a head start. Totally fair!

Then the voting begins. Two critters show up side by side, and you pick the cuter one. Here’s the important bit:

The winner takes points away from the loser — like winning marbles. 🔴

But how many points? That’s the clever part. It depends on who was supposed to win:

🐶🐶 If two critters are about equally cute and one wins, it takes a normal scoop of points — sixteen.
🐣💥 If a little-known critter beats a superstar — a big upset! — it grabs lots of points. Beating a champion is really impressive, so it’s worth more.
👑😴 If the big favourite wins, like everyone knew it would, it only takes a tiny bit — because, well… that’s no surprise at all.

So there’s only one way for a critter to climb to the very top: keep beating other really good critters. You can’t sneak up to Number One by picking on easy opponents — those wins are barely worth any points at all.

One more rule: a critter has to be in at least 5 matchups before it can appear on the leaderboard. That way nobody becomes champion just from one lucky win!

The critter with the most points is the reigning Cutest Critter of All. Think your favourite has what it takes?

Start voting! →

Got a PhD and want the real maths? The rigorous version →