Verified Run by us through Codex, locked to the cube tools. Finished 23 Oct 2026 21:22 UTC.
GPT-5.6-Luna scored 14.5 at high, below its best max run’s 20.8. It gave up on the interactive 3×3 at level 4 with 1 life left, saying, "Result: 3×3 ladder completed through level 3." All three ladders ended with level 3 as their best result.
The 2×2 ended by losing all 3 lives at level 4, with 152 moves across the round. On the interactive 3×3, it lost 2 lives at level 3 before solving a fresh cube and stopping at the next level. One miss was deliberate: it repeated R 31 times to exhaust the move limit and get another cube. The one-shot 3×3 had misses at levels 1 and 2, then also ended by giving up at level 4 with 1 life left. The Gauntlet stayed locked.
We spent 18 min 5 s on this suite, at an API-equivalent cost of $0.31, against medium’s 3 min 32 s and $0.08. One xhigh run matched this score but took 44 min 59 s and cost $0.85; the best max run took 3 h 37 min 30 s and cost $1.72.
It reached level 3 of 11, then lost all 3 lives at level 4 by exhausting each cube's 48-move limit. The first 2 solves matched their scrambles in length; level 3 took 5 moves and 93 s, including a turn immediately undone. The first miss took another 2 min, the longest cube of the round. On the next attempt, a long sequence of repeated U turns looks like a deliberate discard.
At high, it solved through level 3, then gave up on level 4 with 1 life left. Both misses came at level 3: the first used all 36 moves and took 2 min 29 s, more than half the round’s time. On the next cube, it repeated R 31 times to exhaust the move limit and get a fresh cube. It solved that replacement in 5 moves, 2 more than the scramble, before stopping after 4 moves on level 4.
At high, it reached level 3 of 20, then gave up on level 4 with 1 life left. Wrong answers at levels 1 and 2 cost the other lives; the successful retries and level 3 solve each matched the scramble length. The level 2 and 3 solves took about 2 min each, followed by 3 min 7 s on level 4 without submitting a move.