Word Scramble

How to play word scramble

1. Every word a level asks for comes out of the one set of letters on the wheel. The grid shows how many squares each word needs and a counter reads how many of them you have found, out of five to eight depending on the level.
2. Spell a word by dragging across the letters and lifting your finger, or by tapping letters one at a time and pressing the check. Each key on the wheel can be used once in a word, and a letter that appears twice in the set has a key of its own, which is how the set AELNNRT can spell a word that needs both of its N letters.
3. A guess shorter than three letters is not judged at all, and nothing the grid asks for is shorter than three letters.
4. A word the grid wants fills itself in the moment you spell it. A word that is not in the grid but is on that level's list of extra words pays fifteen stars. Anything else flashes for a moment and costs you nothing, because this board never sends a wrong word for grading.
5. Those extra words are a list written into each level rather than a dictionary lookup, so a real word can still be turned down. The eighteen levels carry between five and twelve of them apiece, one hundred and eighty eight in all.
6. The level is solved once every square in the grid is showing its letter, and the first clear pays a hundred stars for each point of its difficulty. The eighteen levels run from difficulty one to difficulty six, so a level is worth between a hundred and six hundred stars.

The two ways to play

What to do when you are stuck

• Start with the level's own name. It is shown on the card, and in all eighteen levels that name is one of the words the grid is asking for, spelled with every letter on the wheel. No word in the level is longer, so spelling it first opens the most squares.
• Then look for a second word hiding in the same full set of letters. Six of the eighteen levels ask for more than one word that uses every letter: Stone also wants NOTES and ONSET, Heart wants EARTH, Trail wants TRIAL, Garden wants DANGER and GANDER, Master wants STREAM, and Silver wants SLIVER and LIVERS.
• Let the crossings work for you. A word counts as found the moment every one of its squares is showing, however those squares came to be showing, so one long word laid through the grid can complete a short crossing word on its own. Each level has between four and eight squares where two words cross.
• Buy a hint late rather than early. A hint always takes the shortest word you are still missing, ties settled alphabetically, and every level has at least one three letter word in it, so a hint bought while a short word is open goes there instead of into the long word you are stuck on.

Controls

• Drag across the wheel to trace a word and lift to submit it. A thread follows your finger through the letters you have picked up, so you can see the word taking shape before you let go.
• Dragging back onto the letter you picked up before the last one takes that last letter off again, so a mis-drag is fixable without lifting your finger.
• A tap, meaning a press and a release without moving, adds that letter to the word instead, and a clear button and an enter button appear. Tapping a letter that is already in the word takes it back out.
• The shuffle button turns the wheel. The letters keep their order around the circle and only the angle changes, it costs nothing, and the puzzle underneath is untouched.
• Hint is the only power-up this board offers. There is no fifty fifty and no skip, because neither means anything on a grid you fill a word at a time.
• The wheel answers a finger, a stylus or a mouse, and nothing else: it reads pointer presses and has no key handler of its own, so the letters cannot be played from the keyboard. Shuffle, clear and enter are ordinary buttons.

Questions about word scramble

What are stars for, and how do I get them?

Stars are what a hint is paid with. A browser that has never played here starts with a hundred of them. Clearing a level for the first time pays a hundred stars for each point of its difficulty, an extra word pays fifteen, finishing a level of the road pays a chest on top, and the bonus card pays fifty. The balance is kept once for the whole site, so stars earned here will pay for a hint in another game.

Is a Word Scramble round timed, and can I fail one?

Neither. Nothing on this board counts down and no level carries a time limit: the only waits in the mechanic are a short pause before a filled grid is submitted and the brief flash on a word the level does not know. A wrong word flashes and makes a noise and that is the whole of it, because the board only ever submits a solved level and never a failed one, so a wrong guess cannot take one of the five hearts the arcade gives you.

Does it save what I have done?

Yes, in this browser. The level you are on and the puzzles you have cleared are stored against this page's own address, so the fair keeps its own progress and the other games keep theirs. Your star balance and your daily streak are stored once for the whole site.

What does a hint actually give me?

One letter, in the shortest word you are still missing, with ties settled alphabetically. It ships at thirty stars and spends a saved hint token before it spends stars, and if there is no letter left to reveal you get back exactly what you spent. Because a word counts as found once all of its squares are showing, a hinted letter can finish a word, and the last one can finish the level.