- The Games
- An Overview
- The Dictionary
- A Glossary of Terms
- Frequently Asked Questions
- Anagrammer
- Anti-Gravity
- Avalanche
- Cave In
- Cross Ways
- Dead Lines
- Elegance
- Free Cell
- Gobble
- Golf
- Griddle
- Jodi's Quotes
- Jumble
- Klondike
- Le Scarab
- Letter Box
- Loch Ness
- Prospector
- Pyramid
- Rock Piles
- Tetris (Classic)
- Tetris (Slippery)
- Tetris (Sticky)
- Tower of Babble
- Tri Peaks
- Simple Stacks
- Unscramble
- Vowel Strength
- Walls of Jericho
- Word Speed
- Worm Hole
Objective: To use all the tiles from a 14-letter word to spell 3
smaller words.
Scoring: Points are awarded for each word depending on its length,
with 4- and 5-letter words scoring the most points, plus a time bonus.
Letter Distribution: one 14-letter word.
Layout: 14 individual letters (top) and 3 stacks for words (bottom).
Difficulty: Moderate
How to Play:
- Click and drag with the mouse to transfer tiles from stack to stack.
- Any number of tiles can be moved from stack to stack, as long as the
result spells a word (or the beginning of a word) on both stacks.
- A checkmark will appear next to each stack indicating that it spells a
complete word.
- When all the tiles have been used and all the stacks have checkmarks next
to them, you win!
- But no tiles are removed from play until the game ends; you must find ways
to maneuver around them.
Strategies:
- For the highest possible score, try to spell one 4-letter and two 5-letter
words.
- To save time, drag multiple tiles at once when moving around among the 3
stacks (rather than one-at-a-time).
Objective: To play forever by spelling words with the letters that
keep floating up.
Scoring: Points are awarded for every letter used, plus extra points
for longer words.
Letter Distribution: Infinite supply of letter tiles, obtained by
scrambling randomly selected English words.
Layout: 5 empty stacks, 5 word length indicators, and a field of
letter tiles
Difficulty: Moderate
How to Play:
- Try to form words (vertically) on each of the 5 stacks using the letters
that float up.
- Maneuver each letter onto the desired stack using the left and right arrow
keys.
- Use the spacebar to swap the current letter for the next one.
- Each stack has a minimum word length indicated by the number above it.
- As soon as a sufficiently long word is formed, its letter tiles fall back
down.
- The more words you form, the longer the the minimum length becomes (2, 3,
4, 5, 6, 7 letters).
- The BOMB tile will remove all the letters from a single stack.
Strategies:
- Even if you have spot for the current letter, use the spacebar to peek
ahead at the next two letters (it goes through through top 3 letters, then
repeats, until one of the letters lands on a stack).
- Use the spacebar to save bombs for when you really need them.
- Try to form words that have many possible endings or conjugations, for
more flexibility.
Objective: To dig your way to the surface before your oxygen runs out.
Scoring: A fixed score is awarded for every second of oxygen that
remains.
Letter Distribution: 100 tiles randomly selected from scrambled words.
Layout: 5x10 grid of letter tiles (left) and a player rack (right)
Difficulty: Hard
How to Play:
- You are a mountain climber trapped by an avalanche.
- Dig yourself out by spelling words with the letters that are trapping you.
- Try to form a word on your rack by carefully choosing a sequence of
letters to excavate.
- You can only excavate letters that you can move to, i.e. they're next to
you or there's blank space between you and them.
- Click on a letter tile to move there and dig it out (thus moving the
letter tile down to your rack).
- A checkmark will appear next to your rack as soon as you have formed a
word.
- Click on the checkmark to score the word, or click on another letter tile
to keep adding on to it.
- You cannot remove a tile once it has been moved down to your rack.
- You cannot move tiles within the grid.
- If you get stuck, click UNDO to take back your last move.
Strategies:
- Focus on short words (2 and 3 letters), as long as they move you up at
least one step.
- While working on the current word, plan ahead to make sure you'll have
good letters remaining for the next word.
- Avoid ending a word at the left or right edge, because you'll have fewer
choices for starting the next word.
Objective: To dig a path through the letters from bottom to top by
spelling words with them.
Scoring: Points are awarded for each word scored, with significantly
more points being awarded for longer words, plus a time bonus.
Letter Distribution: 72 tiles randomly selected, using English letter
frequency as probability.
Layout: player rack (bottom) and a 4x6 cave of letter tiles (top)
Difficulty: Moderate
How to Play:
- To start your first word, click on any letter tile to move it from the
grid down to your rack.
- Each subsequent tile must be adjacent to the previous one in the grid (up,
down, left, right, or diagonally).
- Try to form a word on your rack by carefully choosing a sequence of
letters.
- A checkmark will appear next to your rack as soon as you have formed a
word.
- Click on the checkmark to score the word, or click on another letter tile
to keep adding on to it.
- After scoring a word, the letters you have cleared will cave in from the
top.
- You can then choose the first letter of your next word from anywhere in
the grid.
- If you get stuck, click UNDO to take back the last move.
- The letters will stop caving in once you have cleared 48 tiles.
Strategies:
- Try to extend your word as much as possible (by adding an -S or -ED or
-LY) for more points.
- Look for clumps of vowels with no consonants (or consonants with no
vowels) and try to clear them.
- While working on the current word, plan ahead to make sure you'll have
good letters remaining for the next word.
Objective: To create a legal crossword before time runs out.
Scoring: A fixed score is awarded for each use of a letter in the
crossword, plus a bonus for using all of the tiles, and a bonus for finishing
early.
Letter Distribution: 14 tiles randomly selected, using a common word
game probability distribution.
Layout: player rack (bottom) and a 7x7 grid as the playing board (top)
Difficulty: Moderate
How to Play:
- Try to form crisscrossing words on the playing board.
- Click and drag with the mouse to move a letter tile from your rack to the
board.
- To form a legal crossword, all of the words must intersect with each other
(i.e. share a letter).
- Any horizontal or vertical sequence of 2 or more letters will be
considered a word, and must be in the dictionary.
- Diagonals are not counted.
- Your score will be updated and a checkmark will appear whenever the board
has a legal crossword.
- Click on the checkmark to score your current crossword and end the game
immediately.
- Or keep rearranging tiles to try for more points.
Strategies:
- Each use of a letter tile (horizontal and vertical) gets scored, so try to
cross as many words as possible for the best score.
- Keep an eye on the time clock -- you don't want to get stuck with an
invalid crossword when time runs out!
Objective: To clear as many lines as possible by spelling words with
the letters that fall.
Scoring: Points are awarded for every line that collapses.
Letter Distribution: Infinite supply of letter tiles, obtained by
scrambling randomly selected English words.
Layout: An empty cup with room for 7 letters across and 10 letters
down, your current letter, plus a preview of the next letter.
Difficulty: Medium
How to Play:
- Try to form words (across or down) using the letter tiles that fall.
- Maneuver each letter to the desired location using the left and right
arrow keys.
- Use the spacebar (or the up arrow key) to swap your current letter for the
next one.
- Use the down arrow key to drop the letter straight down until it hits
something.
- Whenever you form a word that's 3 letters or longer, its letters will be
highlighted.
- Once you have highlighted an entire horizontal line, it will disappear and
the tiles above it will shift down.
- The more lines you clear, and the longer you play, the faster your letters
will fall from the sky.
Strategies:
- Even if you have spot for the current letter, use the spacebar to peek
ahead at the next two letters (note that it cycles through through top 3
letters, then repeats, until one of the letters lands on a stack).
- Never hold out for a particular letter to spell a particular word that you
have in mind. Be flexible.
- If you can't spell a word with the current letter, at least try to form a
common syllable (especially one with many possible prefixes or suffixes).
- If you can't even form a syllable, at least try to alternate between
vowels and consonants. By avoiding clumps of vowels and clumps of consonants,
you'll have more opportunities to spell words later.
- If your eyes get tired, or you find yourself getting tense, press F3 to
pause the game!
Objective: To reveal all 28 letters and use them to spell words on all
7 stacks.
Scoring: A fixed score is awarded for using all 28 letters, plus a
bonus depending on the amount of time used.
Letter Distribution: 28 tiles randomly selected, using English letter
frequency as probability
Layout: 7 stacks of letter tiles, and a letter bin
Difficulty: Hard
How to Play:
- Click and drag with the mouse to transfer tiles from stack to stack.
- Any number of tiles can be moved from stack to stack, as long as the
result spells a word (or the beginning of a word) on both stacks.
- A checkmark will appear above each stack indicating that it spells a
complete word.
- When all the tiles are uncovered and all the stacks have checkmarks over
them, you win!
- But tiles are not removed from play until the game ends; you must find
ways to maneuver around them.
Strategies:
- Try to empty a stack early and then purposefully ignore it until there are
only a couple tiles left to uncover.
- Try to spell words that have many possible endings, for the most
flexibility later on.
Objective: To spell out the 4 target words, thereby emptying all 8
stacks of letters.
Scoring: A fixed number of points are awarded for each letter scored,
plus bonus points for completing all four words in a short time.
Letter Distribution: 52 letters obtained by shuffling four 13-letter
words.
Layout: 8 stacks of letter tiles, 4 free cells (upper left), and 4
target words (upper right)
Difficulty: Easy
How to Play:
- Click and drag with the mouse to transfer a tile from one stack to
another, or between a stack and a free cell.
- Only one tile may be moved at a time.
- Any tile may be moved onto an empty free cell.
- To move a tile onto a stack, it must form a complete word at the end of
that stack.
- Double-click on a tile to score it (if it's the next letter in one of the
target words) or move it to a free cell (if one is available).
- Once a tile is scored, it cannot be retrieved.
Objective: To clear all 7 stacks by spelling words with their letters.
Scoring: A fixed score is awarded for each letter used, plus a bonus
for short time, minus a penalty for each bomb.
Letter Distribution: 42 tiles randomly selected, using English letter
frequency as probability
Layout: player rack (bottom), 7 stacks of letter tiles (middle), a
pile of bombs (upper left), and a letter bin (upper right)
Difficulty: Moderate
How to Play:
- Click on a letter tile to move it from its stack down to your rack.
- All the tiles are face-up, but you can only move tiles that are at the
bottom of their stacks.
- Try to form a word on your rack by choosing your letters judiciously.
- A checkmark will appear next to your rack as soon as you have formed a
word.
- Click on the checkmark to score the word, or click on another letter tile
to keep adding on to it.
- Note that you cannot remove a tile once it has been moved down to your
rack.
- Instead, click on the bomb pile to remove the tiles from your rack and
start over with new word.
- You cannot move tiles from stack to stack.
Strategies:
- While working on the current word, plan ahead to make sure you'll have
enough vowels available for the next word.
- Try to keep all of the stacks roughly even in length, so you don't run out
of choices near the end.
Objective: To spell as many words as possible before time runs out.
Scoring: Points are awarded for each word scored, with significantly
more points being awarded for longer words.
Letter Distribution: 16 tiles randomly selected, using English letter
frequency as probability.
Layout: player rack (bottom), a 4x4 grid of letter tiles (top), and a
word bin (upper right)
Difficulty: Easy
How to Play:
- To start your first word, click on any letter tile to move it from the
grid down to your rack.
- Each subsequent tile must be adjacent to the previous one in the grid (up,
down, left, right, or diagonally).
- Try to form a word on your rack by carefully choosing a sequence of
letters.
- A checkmark will appear next to your rack as soon as you have formed a
word.
- Click on the checkmark to score the word, or click on another letter tile
to keep adding on to it.
- After scoring a word, you can choose the first letter of your next word
from anywhere in the grid.
- If you get stuck, click UNDO to take back the last move.
Strategies:
- Ignore the shorter words until you can't find any longer ones (since
longer words score more points)
- Look for rhyming words whose consonants are next to each other in the
grid.
- Look for words that can get longer and longer, like "bo, bot, both,
bother", and score them all.
Objective: To clear the entire grid by spelling words with all of its
letters.
Scoring: A fixed score is awarded for each letter used, plus a bonus
for shorter times.
Letter Distribution: 49 tiles randomly selected, using a common word
game probability distribution.
Layout: player rack (bottom), a 7x7 grid of letter tiles (middle), a
pile of smart stars (upper left), and a letter bin (upper right)
Difficulty: Hard
How to Play:
- To start your first word, click on any letter tile to move it from the
grid down to your rack.
- Each subsequent tile must be adjacent to the previous one in the grid (up,
down, left, right, or diagonally).
- Try to form a word on your rack by carefully choosing a sequence of
letters.
- A checkmark will appear next to your rack as soon as you have formed a
word.
- Click on the checkmark to score the word, or click on another letter tile
to keep adding on to it.
- After scoring a word, you can choose the first letter of your next word
from anywhere in the grid.
- If you get stuck in the middle of a word, click on a lightning bolt -- it
will allow you jump anywhere in the grid.
- You cannot remove a tile once it has been moved down to your rack.
- You cannot move tiles within the grid.
Strategies:
- Look for clumps of vowels with no consonants (or consonants with no
vowels) and take care of these first.
- While working on the current word, plan ahead to make sure you'll have
good letters remaining for the next word.
Objective: To reconstruct a famous quotation, one word at a time.
Scoring: A fixed score is awarded for each word, plus a time bonus,
minus a penalty for each pass through the stock pile.
Letter Distribution: variable number letters, obtained by shuffling a
quotation.
Layout: 5 empty stacks, a stock pile and waste pile, and a blanked-out
quotation.
Difficulty: Hard
How to Play:
- Before you begin, memorize the famous quotation.
- Then click once anywhere to blank out the quotation and start the game.
- Only one tile can be moved at a time.
- Click on the stock pile (or on the waste pile) to search through its
letters.
- Click and drag to move a tile from the pile to a stack.
- Or simply click next to a stack to quickly move the current letter from
the stock pile onto that stack.
- You can move any tile onto an empty stack.
- But you can only move a letter onto a non-empty stack if it is the first
letter of a word from the quotation, or if it continues a word from the
quotation that has already been started.
- As soon as you complete a word, it will automatically fly up and fill in
the appropriate blank in the quote.
- If you forget the quotation, you can click and hold on the blanked version
(this costs 25 points).
- Note that right-clicking (anywhere in the window) is a shortcut for
turning over the next tile from the stock pile.
Strategies:
- Don't get fixated on a particular word -- spell whatever you can as soon
as you can.
- Scan the quotation for rare letters (like a "Z" or
"V") and watch for them as you go through the stock pile.
Unique letters are bottlenecks that can easily block your game.
Objective: To spell as many words as possible before time runs out.
Scoring: Points are awarded for each word scored, with significantly
more points being awarded for longer words.
Letter Distribution: one 7-letter word.
Layout: player rack (bottom), 7 letter tiles (top), and a word bin
(right)
Difficulty: Easy
How to Play:
- Try to spell a word on your rack using the letters from the jumble word.
- Click on any letter tile to move it down to your rack.
- A checkmark will appear next to your rack as soon as you have formed a
word on it.
- Click on the checkmark to score the word, or click on another letter tile
to keep adding to it.
- After scoring a word, the tiles you used will be returned to the top so
you can start your next word.
- If you get stuck, click UNDO to take back your last move.
Strategies:
- Ignore the shorter words until you can't find any longer ones (since
longer words score more points)
- Look for words that rhyme "pare, hare, dare, fare" and score
them all.
- Look for words that can get longer and longer, like "bo, bot, both,
bother" and score them all.
Objective: To spell out the 4 target words, thereby emptying all 7
stacks and both piles.
Scoring: A fixed number of points are awarded for each letter scored,
plus bonus points for completing all four words in a short time.
Letter Distribution: 52 letters obtained by shuffling four 13-letter
words.
Layout: 7 stacks of letter tiles (bottom), a stock pile and waste pile
(upper left), and 4 target words (upper right)
Difficulty: Easy
How to Play:
- Double-click on a tile to score it, as long as it's the next letter in one
of the target words.
- Click and drag with the mouse to transfer tiles from one stack to another.
- Any number of tiles may be moved from stack to stack.
- However, at all times, all face-up tiles on a stack must form a complete
word.
- Click on the stock pile (or waste pile) to turn over the next letter in
the pile.
- Click below a stack to move the top card from the waste pile onto that
stack.
- Once a tile is scored, it cannot be retrieved.
Objective: To use up all of the letter tiles creating the crossword
worth the most points.
Scoring: A fixed score is awarded for each use of a letter in the
crossword, plus bonuses for building on certain squares, and a bonus for using
up your entire rack.
Letter Distribution: 75 tiles randomly selected, using a common word
game probability distribution.
Layout: player rack (bottom) and a 13x13 grid as the playing board
(top)
Difficulty: Moderate
How to Play:
- Try to form crisscrossing words on the playing board, one at a time.
- Click and drag with the mouse to move a letter tile from your rack to the
board.
- The first word must use the center square (and you get quadruple points
for it).
- Each subsequent word must intersect with or extend at least one word
already on the board.
- Any horizontal or vertical sequence of 2 or more letters will be
considered a word, and must be in the dictionary.
- Diagonals are not counted.
- A checkmark will appear whenever your word is legal.
- Click on the checkmark at any time to score your current and replenish
your rack with new tiles
- The game ends when there are no more tiles to play.
Strategies:
- Each use of a letter tile (horizontal and vertical) gets scored, so try to
cross as many words as possible for the best score.
- The biggest possible score comes when you get the scarab AND a double or
triple word bonus, so watch for these opportunities.
- For better flexibility, try to keep the number of vowels and consonants on
your rack balanced.
- Plan ahead when building your words, so you'll be able to reach the double
and triple scores in the future.
Objective: To clear all the tiles in the letter box before they touch by spelling words.
Scoring: Points are awarded for each word scored, with significantly
more points being awarded for longer words.
Letter Distribution: 49 tiles randomly selected by scrambling words in
the dictionary.
Layout: letter box (top), player rack (bottom left), and 3 free cells
(bottom right)
Difficulty: Moderate
How to Play:
- Try to spell a word on your rack by choosing the sequence of letters
carefully.
- Each time you spell a word, the two sets of letters will advance towards
each other.
- Just click on a letter tile to move it from its location down to your
rack.
- But you have to use the tiles on the advancing edge of the sets to free up the tiles
behind them.
- A checkmark will appear next to your rack as soon as you have formed a
word.
- Click on the checkmark to score the word, or click on another letter tile
to keep adding on to it.
- At any time, you can right-click a letter tile to store it in the next
empty "free cell".
- Use free cell letters in later words, or hold them until the end of the
game (when they're discarded).
Strategies:
- Use the free cells to help you spell really long words for extra points.
- Try to clear the entire left or right set of tiles, to get a little more
breathing room.
- While working on the current word, plan ahead to make sure you'll have
good letters available for the next word.
- As you near the end of the game, if there are letters you can't use, move
them onto free cells so they won't get counted and you can still win the game.
Objective: To clear all 7 stacks by spelling words with their letters.
Scoring: Points are awarded for each word scored, with significantly
more points being awarded for longer words, plus a time bonus.
Letter Distribution: 49 tiles randomly selected, using English letter
frequency as probability
Layout: player rack (bottom), 7 stacks of letter tiles (middle), a
pile of smart stars (upper left), and a letter bin (upper right)
Difficulty: Easy
How to Play:
- Click on a letter tile to move it from its stack down to your rack.
- Try to form a word on your rack by choosing letters carefully.
- You can only move a tile onto your rack if it spells a word (or the
beginning of a word) there.
- A checkmark will appear next to your rack as soon as you have formed a
complete word.
- Click on the checkmark to score the word, or click on another letter tile
to keep adding on to it.
- You cannot remove a tile once it has been moved down to your rack.
- You cannot move tiles from stack to stack.
- If you find yourself stuck, click on a smart star tile to add another
letter.
Strategies:
- Try not to let one stack stay bigger than the others, or else you'll get
stuck with one stack of letters and no choices.
- For a higher score, go ahead and use one or two smart letters whenever it
enables you to spell a really long word.
Objective: To spell as many words as possible before time runs out.
Scoring: Points are awarded for each word scored, with significantly
more points being awarded for longer words.
Letter Distribution: one 10-letter word
Layout: player rack (bottom), 10 letter tiles (top), and a word bin
(right)
Difficulty: Easy
How to Play:
- Try to spell a word on your rack using the letters from the original word
in the same order they appear.
- Click on any letter tile to move it down to your rack.
- Each time you use a letter, all letters that came before it in the
original word will be cleared.
- A checkmark will appear next to your rack as soon as you have formed a
word on it.
- Click on the checkmark to score the word, or click on another letter tile
to keep adding to it.
- After scoring a word, all of the tiles will be restored to the original
word, so you can start your next one.
- If you get stuck, click UNDO to take back your last move.
- Time is up after 120 seconds.
Strategies:
- Ignore the shorter words until you can't find any longer ones (since
longer words score more points)
- Look for words that rhyme "pare, hare, dare, fare" and score
them all.
- Look for words that can get longer and longer, like "bo, bot, both,
bother" and score them all.
- Sometimes looking at the end of the word and working backwards helps you
find a "vein" of words.
Objective: To clear all 7 stacks by spelling words with their letters.
Scoring: A fixed score is awarded for each letter used, plus a bonus
for short time, minus a penalty passing through the stock pile.
Letter Distribution: 44 tiles randomly selected, using a common word
game probability distribution.
Layout: player rack (bottom), a pyramid of 36 letter tiles (middle), a
stock pile and waste pile (upper left), and a letter bin (upper right)
Difficulty: Hard
How to Play:
- Click on a letter tile to move it from its stack down to your rack.
- Try to form a word on your rack by choosing letters carefully.
- But you have to use the tiles at the bottom of the pyramid before you can
free up the tiles above them.
- A checkmark will appear next to your rack as soon as you have formed a
word.
- Click on the checkmark to score the word, or click on another letter tile
to keep adding on to it.
- You cannot remove a tile once it has been moved down to your rack.
- You cannot move tiles from stack to stack.
- If you find yourself stuck, try searching the stock pile to find a helpful
letter.
Strategies:
- To save points, remember the letters in the stock pile during your first
pass through
- While working on the current word, plan ahead to make sure you'll have
good letters available for the next word.
Objective: To clear all of the letters in the 3 rock piles by spelling
words with them.
Scoring: More points are awarded for longer words, plus a bonus for
shorter times, minus a penalty for each pass through the stock pile.
Letter Distribution: 42 tiles randomly selected, using a common word
game probability distribution.
Layout: player rack (bottom), a rock pile of 33 letter tiles (middle),
stock and waste piles (upper left), and a letter bin (upper right)
Difficulty: Medium
How to Play:
- Click on any letter tile to move it from its location down to your rack.
- Try to form a word on your rack by choosing letters carefully.
- You have to use the tiles on the surface of the pile before you can free
up the tiles below them.
- A checkmark will appear next to your rack as soon as you have formed a
word.
- Click on the checkmark to score the word, or click on another letter tile
to keep adding on to it.
- If you find yourself stuck, try searching the stock pile to find a helpful
letter.
Strategies:
- To save points, try to remember the letters in the stock pile during your
first pass through.
- While working on the current word, plan ahead to make sure you'll have
good letters available for the next word.
- To improve your score, try to form really long words once you get to the
bottom of the pile.
Objective: To clear all 7 stacks by spelling words on them.
Scoring: Points are awarded for each word scored, with significantly
more points being awarded for longer words, plus a time bonus.
Letter Distribution: 49 tiles randomly selected, using English letter
frequency as probability
Layout: 7 stacks of letter tiles, and a letter bin
Difficulty: Easy
How to Play:
- Click and drag with the mouse to transfer tiles from stack to stack.
- Any number of tiles can be moved, as long as the result spells a word (or
the beginning of a word) on both stacks.
- A checkmark will appear above each stack whenever the stack spells a
complete word.
- Click the checkmark at any time to score the word and clear those tiles.
Strategies:
- Try to maintain a healthy balance between vowels and consonants at all
times.
- Once you get down to a dozen tiles or so, make sure you can spell words
using ALL of them.
Objective: To play forever by forming lines with the shapes that fall.
Scoring: Points are awarded for every line that collapses.
Letter Distribution: None. There are no letters in this game!
Layout: An empty cup with room for 10 tiles across and 20 tiles down,
your current shape, plus a preview of the next shape.
Difficulty: Easy
How to Play:
- Try to form horizontal lines using the shapes shapes that fall.
- Maneuver each shape to the desired location using the left and right arrow
keys.
- Use the spacebar (or the up arrow key) to rotate the shape
counter-clockwise for a better fit.
- Use the down arrow key to drop the shape straight down until it hits
something.
- Whenever you form a complete horizontal line, its tiles will automatically
disappear.
- The more lines you clear, and the longer you play, the faster your pieces
will fall from the sky.
Strategies:
- Try to keep the surface of your pile uneven, so there's room for any one
of the 7 shapes that might come next.
- If your fingers get tired, or you find yourself getting tense, press F3 to
pause the game!
Objective: To play forever by spelling words with the shapes that
fall.
Scoring: Points are awarded for every letter each time it's used in a
word.
Letter Distribution: Infinite supply of vowels and consonants,
obtained by scrambling the letters in other words.
Layout: An empty cup with room for 8 letters across and 13 letters
down, your current shape, plus a preview of the next shape.
Difficulty: Moderate
How to Play:
- Try to form words (across or down) using the letters in the shapes that
fall.
- Maneuver each shape to the desired location using the left and right arrow
keys.
- Use the spacebar (or the up arrow key) to rotate the shape
counter-clockwise for a better fit.
- Use the down arrow key to drop the shape straight down until it hits
something.
- Note that the tiles in the shape will break apart as soon as they hit;
they are only loosely bound together.
- Whenever you form a word that's 3 letters or longer, its letters will
automatically disappear.
- Any tiles that were above the word will be shifted down after the word
disappears.
- The more words you clear, and the longer you play, the faster your pieces
will fall from the sky.
Strategies:
- Never hold out for a particular letter to spell a particular word that you
have in mind. Be flexible.
- If you can't spell a word with the current shape, at least try to form a
common syllable (especially one with many possible prefixes or suffixes).
- If you can't even form a syllable, at least try to alternate between
vowels and consonants. By avoiding clumps of vowels and clumps of consonants,
you'll have more opportunities to spell words later.
- If your piece has a particularly heinous letter in it (e.g. Q, X, or J)
and you can't use it, check the preview of the next piece to see if it will
help you clear the letter right away. This may influence your decision on
where to place it.
- If your eyes get tired, or you find yourself getting tense, press F3 to
pause the game!
Objective: To play forever by spelling words with the shapes that
fall.
Scoring: Points are awarded for every letter each time it's used in a
word.
Letter Distribution: Infinite supply of vowels and consonants,
randomly chosen according to English letter frequency.
Layout: An empty cup with room for 8 letters across and 13 letters
down, your current shape, plus a preview of the next shape.
Difficulty: Moderate
How to Play:
- Try to form words (across or down) using the letters in the shapes that
fall.
- Maneuver each shape to the desired location using the left and right arrow
keys.
- Use the spacebar (or the up arrow key) to rotate the shape
counter-clockwise for a better fit.
- Use the down arrow key to drop the shape straight down until it hits
something.
- Each shape is rigid, and its tiles are sticky; wherever the shape lands,
that's where the tiles will remain.
- However, whenever you form a word that's 3 letters or longer, its letters
will automatically disappear.
- And any tiles that were directly above the word will be shifted down as
soon as the word disappears.
- Keep spelling words to clear the cup and make room for new shapes.
- But the more words you clear, and the longer you play, the faster the
shapes will fall from the sky.
Strategies:
- Never hold out for a particular letter to spell a particular word that you
have in mind. Be flexible.
- If you can't spell a word with the current shape, at least try to form a
common syllable (especially one with many possible prefixes or suffixes).
- If you can't even form a syllable, at least try to alternate between
vowels and consonants. By avoiding clumps of vowels and clumps of consonants,
you'll have more opportunities to spell words later.
- If your piece has a particularly heinous letter in it (e.g. Q, X, or J)
and you can't use it, check the preview of the next piece to see if it will
help you clear the letter right away. This may influence your decision on
where to place it.
- If your eyes get tired, or you find yourself getting tense, press F3 to
pause the game!
Objective: To keep the tower from growing too tall by spelling words
with its letters.
Scoring: Points are awarded for each word scored, with significantly
more points being awarded for longer words, plus a time bonus.
Letter Distribution: Infinite supply of vowels and consonants,
obtained by scrambling the letters in other words.
Layout: player rack (bottom) and a 5x9 tower of letter tiles (top)
Difficulty: Moderate
How to Play:
- To start a word, click on any letter tile to move it from the tower down to your rack.
- Each subsequent tile must be adjacent to the previous one in the tower (up,
down, left, right, or diagonally).
- Try to form a word on your rack by carefully choosing a sequence of
letters.
- A checkmark will appear next to your rack as soon as you have formed a
word.
- Click on the checkmark to score the word, or click on another letter tile
to keep adding on to it.
- When you score a word, the tower will collapse to fill the spaces you've
cleared.
- Then a new row of letter tiles will be added to the bottom of the tower.
- Start your next word by picking a letter from anywhere in the tower.
- If you get stuck, click the UNDO button to take back the last move.
- And watch for special bomb tiles -- click them to help demolish a small
part of the tower.
- The game ends whenever the tower gets taller than the top of the screen.
Strategies:
- Try to extend your words as much as possible (e.g. by adding an -S or -ED or
-LY).
- If you can average 5-letter words, you'll stay apace with the growing
tower.
- Watch out for clumps of vowels with no consonants (or consonants with no
vowels).
Objective: To clear all of the letter tiles in the 3 mountain peaks by
spelling words with them.
Scoring: A fixed score is awarded for each letter used, plus a bonus
for shorter times, minus a penalty for each pass through the stock pile.
Letter Distribution: 42 tiles randomly selected, using a common word
game probability distribution.
Layout: player rack (bottom), a mountain range of 33 letter tiles
(middle), a stock pile and waste pile (upper left), and a letter bin (upper
right)
Difficulty: Medium
How to Play:
- Click on any letter tile to move it from its location down to your rack.
- Try to form a word on your rack by choosing letters carefully.
- You have to use the tiles from the bottom of the peaks before you can free
up the tiles above them.
- A checkmark will appear next to your rack as soon as you have formed a
word.
- Click on the checkmark to score the word, or click on another letter tile
to keep adding on to it.
- If you find yourself stuck, try searching the stock pile to find a helpful
letter.
Strategies:
- To save points, try to remember the letters in the stock pile during your
first pass through.
- While working on the current word, plan ahead to make sure you'll have
good letters available for the next word.
- The end of the game is the hardest part. Look at the letters at the top
of the peaks and be sure you can spell a final word with them.
Objective: To unscramble all 5 words as quickly possible.
Scoring: A fixed score is awarded for each letter used, plus a bonus
for shorter times, minus a penalty for each word you get a hint on.
Letter Distribution: five words of increasing length.
Layout: player rack (bottom), five words (top), and an answer bin
(right)
Difficulty: Moderate
How to Play:
- Try to unscramble each of the five words by spelling them one at a time on
your rack.
- Click on any letter tile to move it down to your rack.
- A checkmark will appear next to your rack as soon as you have formed a
complete word on it.
- Click on the checkmark to score that word and move on to the next one.
- While trying to spell the word, you can click UNDO to take back your last move.
- If you get stuck, use the LIGHTNING button to rearrange the letters for a
fresh look.
- Use the HINT button (the question mark) to reveal any word you can't
unscramble.
Strategies:
- Before spelling anything, glance at each word quickly -- your first
impression is often correct.
- Use the LIGHTNING button freely, whenever you need a fresh look at the
word.
- Make longer words shorter by looking for letters that form common endings
like -ing, -ness and -ly.
Objective: To clear all 5 stacks of consonants by spelling words with
them.
Scoring: A fixed score is awarded for each consonant used, minus a
penalty for each vowel, plus a time bonus.
Letter Distribution: Exactly 5 of each vowel, and 35 consonants
randomly selected using a common board game distribution.
Layout: player rack (bottom), 5 stacks of consonant tiles (middle), 5
stacks of vowel tiles (top), and a letter bin (upper right)
Difficulty: Moderate
How to Play:
- Try to spell one word at a time, choosing from the face-up letters on the
vowel and consonant stacks.
- Just click on any face-up letter tile to move it down to your rack.
- But you can only move a tile onto your rack if it spells a word (or the
beginning of a word) there.
- A checkmark will appear next to your rack as soon as you have formed a
complete word.
- Click on the checkmark to score the word, or click on another letter tile
to keep adding on to it.
- You cannot remove a tile once it has been moved down to your rack.
- You cannot move tiles from stack to stack.
- If you find yourself stuck, click UNDO to take back your last move.
Strategies:
- Try to use up the vowels evenly, so you don't get stuck with a bunch of
unusable U's at the end of the game.
- On the other hand, check the letter bin for Q's right away, and make sure
you save enough U's to play them.
- As long as you use up 3 consonants for every 2 vowels, you will win.
Objective: To tear down the walls by spelling words with all their
letters.
Scoring: A fixed score is awarded for each letter used, plus a bonus
for short time.
Letter Distribution: 49 tiles randomly selected, using English letter
frequency as probability.
Layout: player rack (bottom), a 7x7 grid of letter tiles (middle), a
pile of smart stars (upper left), and a letter bin (upper right)
Difficulty: Moderate
How to Play:
- Click on a letter tile to move it from the outer wall down to your rack.
- You must exhaust all the tiles from the outer walls before you can reach
the inner ones.
- Try to form a word on your rack by carefully choosing a sequence of
letters.
- A checkmark will appear next to your rack as soon as you have formed a
word.
- Click on the checkmark to score the word, or click on another letter tile
to keep adding on to it.
- You cannot remove a tile once it has been moved down to your rack.
- You cannot move tiles within the walls.
- If you get stuck, click on a smart star for a free letter that will help
you complete your word.
Strategies:
- While working on the current word, plan ahead to make sure you'll have
good letters remaining for the next word.
- The last letter is usually the hardest, so make sure you can complete a
word with it, or reserve enough smart stars to clear it.
Objective: To spell as many words as possible before time runs out.
Scoring: Points are awarded for each word scored, with significantly
more points being awarded for longer words.
Letter Distribution: 9 tiles randomly selected, using English letter
frequency as probability.
Layout: player rack (bottom), a 3x3 grid of letter tiles (top), and a
word bin (upper right)
Difficulty: Easy
How to Play:
- Try to spell a word on your rack using the letters from the grid.
- Click on any letter tile to move it from the grid down to your rack.
- A checkmark will appear next to your rack as soon as you have formed a
word on it.
- Click on the checkmark to score the word, or click on another letter tile
to keep adding to it.
- After scoring a word, the tiles will be returned to the grid so you can
start the next word.
- If you get stuck, click UNDO to take back your last move.
Strategies:
- Ignore the shorter words until you can't find any longer ones (since
longer words score more points)
- Look for words that rhyme "pare, hare, dare, fare" and score
them all.
- Look for words that can get longer and longer, like "bo, bot, both,
bother", and score them all.
Objective: To eat up the entire apple by spelling words with all of
its letters.
Scoring: Points are awarded for each word scored, with significantly
more points being awarded for longer words, plus a time bonus.
Letter Distribution: 49 tiles randomly selected, using English letter
frequency as probability.
Layout: player rack (bottom), a 7x7 grid of letter tiles (middle), a
pile of smart stars (upper left), and a letter bin (upper right)
Difficulty: Easy
How to Play:
- You are the worm in the center of the apple.
- Try to form a word on your rack by carefully choosing a sequence of
letters to eat.
- You can only reach letters that are on the edge of your ever-widening worm
hole.
- Click on a letter tile to move there and eat it (thus moving the letter
tile down to your rack).
- A checkmark will appear next to your rack as soon as you have formed a
word.
- Click on the checkmark to score the word, or click on another letter tile
to keep adding on to it.
- You cannot remove a tile once it has been moved down to your rack.
- You cannot move tiles within the apple.
- If you get stuck, click on a smart star for a free letter that will help
you complete your word.
Strategies:
- While working on the current word, plan ahead to make sure you'll have
good letters remaining for the next word.
- The last letter is usually the hardest, so make sure you can complete a
word with it, or reserve enough smart stars to clear it.
Word Solitaire is a collection of thirty original, challenging,
single-player word
games. They're inspired by solitaire card games, but they're played with
wooden letter tiles a la Scrabble™. You'll find that you need to
use knowledge and strategies from both types of games in order to succeed at
Word Solitaire!
Included in this package are word-based variations of today's most popular
solitaire games like Free Cell, Klondike, Golf and Pyramid, as well as solitaire
versions of many popular board games and word games, plus many completely
original one-player word games.
Word Solitaire uses the ENABLE dictionary to check your words for
correctness. ENABLE stands for "Enhanced North American Benchmark
LExicon." It's a carefully researched and meticulously compiled
combination of many other dictionaries (such as Merriam Webster 10th Edition and
the Official Scrabble Players Dictionary), and has graciously been made
available for public use by its lexicographers. For more information and a
thoroughly annotated history of the ENABLE dictionary, you can visit: http://personal.riverusers.com/~thegrendel/.
For Word Solitaire, the raw ENABLE dictionary data is contained in the file
"words.lst" (located in the same folder as the game itself). If
you would like to add or remove words from the dictionary, you can do so by
manually editing this file. Just be sure to: 1) keep it in alphabetical
order and 2) use lower case letters only. For more information about
this process (and the game in general), please see the Word Solitaire web site
at http://www.haversack.com/wordsol.
- Bomb - a special tile that discards all of the letters that come
before it.
- Cell - a temporary holding area for a single letter tile.
- Letter Bin - a list of the letters remaining to be played.
- Rack - the place where you spell out your word.
- Smart Star - a special tile that will add a letter to your word, so
that it completes it (if possible) or at least continues it (if more than
letter is required to finish it).
- Stack - a sequence of letter tiles, some face-up and some
face-down.
- Stock Pile - extra letter tiles you can search through and bring
into play.
- Target Word - a specific word that you must spell to win the game.
- Word Bin - a list of all the words you have spelled so far.
Q: Sometimes the Word Solitaire window goes blank, and all of the
tiles disappear. Why is this happening?
A: By default, Word Solitaire uses its best-looking, full-color graphics
for the game's letter tiles and background. However, depending on the other
applications you are running, these graphics may use up too much of your
system's memory, causing Word Solitaire to unload them and blank out its screen.
If this doesn't occur too often, you can just resize the window (or maximize /
minimize it) to encourage Word Solitaire to redraw the screen. However, if
it occurs regularly, you might consider using the "Options..." command under the
"Game" menu to switch to a solid background color and the black and white letter
tile set. These options require the least amount of memory, and should
alleviate the problem.
Q: The background of my Word Solitaire window looks funny. Is
this normal?
A: There was a bug in Word Solitaire 1.0 that caused problems when
drawing the background on certain systems. If you're having trouble
reading the score and time clock, or you see "garbage" or
"noise" instead of a nice burgundy pattern, upgrade to Word Solitaire
2.0 and it will go away.
Q: When I run Word Solitaire, I get an error
message about my Colors setting. What's wrong?
A: Word Solitaire relies on full-color graphics for
its letter tiles and backgrounds. If your display is set to less than
24-bit Full Color, the game's graphics cannot be drawn properly. To fix
this, right-click on your Windows desktop, choose "Properties" from the menu,
select the "Settings" tab at the top, and finally change your "Colors" setting
to "Full Color (24-bit)" or "True Color (32-bit)".
Q: When I run Word Solitaire, I get an error
message about "file not found". What's up?
A: Word Solitaire needs two files in order to
function properly: a dictionary and a list of quotations. These two files
are named words.lst and quotes.lst, respectively. Make sure
that they are both present in the same folder as the game itself (wordsol.exe).
If you are missing these files, you can download them from http://www.haversack.com/wordsol.
Q: My copy of Word Solitaire has
expired. How can I keep on playing?
A: Go to http://www.haversack.com/wordsol
and register!
Q: Why should I register my copy of Word
Solitaire?
A: Because it's the right thing to do!
A: Because it helps to support this site!
A: Because it helps me improve the game and write
others like it!
A: Because it gives you a chance to offer feedback
and suggestions for the game!
A: Because it gets rid of the nag dialogs and
removes the 60-game limit!
A: Because it supports the shareware game industry,
which brings you low-cost, high-quality, non-corporate games like this!
A: Because it's so darn cheap!
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