Online Word Guess Game

Knowing that a word contains L does not tell you whether it contains two Ls. Hidden-word puzzles turn that distinction, along with letter order, into a deduction task. The aim is to identify a fixed answer of known length before the allowed guesses run out.

An exact-position clue fixes a letter in a particular place. An elsewhere clue confirms a copy of the letter but rules out the guessed position. An unmatched copy can mean that the letter is missing altogether, or that other copies have already accounted for every occurrence. Confusing those cases can make you discard a letter that belongs in the answer.

Each guess balances exploration against trying to solve the word. Testing several new letters checks more distinct letters at once, while repeating a letter tests how many copies might belong. Stricter rules can require every guess to remain a possible answer, ruling out exploratory words that deliberately contradict earlier clues.

A candidate is a word that still fits all the evidence. Candidates must agree with the whole guess history, not just the most recent row. Even a nearly completed spelling can leave several possibilities, so a high number of matching letters does not by itself guarantee that the next guess will solve the puzzle.

Vocabulary knowledge helps generate candidates, but the accepted word list sets another boundary. A game may accept an uncommon word while omitting another valid English word. Acceptance means a spelling is allowed as a guess, not necessarily that it can be selected as the hidden answer.

How to Use This Tool:

The initial setup is a five-letter Daily-style puzzle with Strict hard mode off. Play is untimed and does not require an account.

1. Choose a Challenge. Daily-style uses today's date in Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). Practice lets you enter a Puzzle seed containing 1 to 96 characters after spaces at the beginning and end are removed.
2. Set Word length to 4, 5, or 6 letters and choose whether to enable Strict hard mode. Hard mode requires every later guess to fit all earlier clues. Select Start puzzle when those choices are ready.
3. Enter a word using A to Z on the focused board or the onscreen keyboard. Uppercase and lowercase letters are treated alike. With the board focused, Enter submits and Backspace erases the last letter. With touch or mouse, use Enter guess and Erase.
   A rejected submission does not use a guess. Complete a short word, erase and replace an unlisted or repeated word, or revise a hard-mode guess that conflicts with earlier clues. The current letters remain available to edit.
4. Read the accepted row before choosing another word. Open Why these clues? for a written explanation of the letter counts. Guesses advances only after an accepted submission, and Remaining shows how many of the six attempts are left.

Use Pause or Escape to suspend input. The game also pauses when focus leaves its area, the browser tab is hidden, or the window loses focus. Resume continues with the same letters and guesses. Restart clears the board but keeps the puzzle and settings. To stop early, pause and choose End & reveal.

After a puzzle ends, Replay same puzzle starts it again. New seed generates a random practice seed with the same length and hard-mode setting, while Change setup returns to the challenge choices.

Interpreting Results:

Clues use symbols and text labels as well as color. Read each mark as feedback about that particular copy of the guessed letter.

The onscreen keyboard keeps the strongest clue seen for each letter, with exact position taking priority over elsewhere, then no remaining match. It does not display all positions or copy counts. A key marked ■ can coexist with an extra copy marked × in a guess row.

Word found! means the complete answer was submitted, including when it was the sixth accepted guess. Six guesses, one new word means all six accepted guesses missed. Puzzle ended means you stopped early. Every ending reveals the answer and the number of guesses used.

The result text omits guessed words and the answer. A win shows its attempt count, such as 2/6, while X/6 can mean either a loss or an early ending. Its grid uses a middle dot for an unmatched tile instead of ×. The text includes the seed and rules version, so recipients can replay the puzzle. Avoid using private information as a practice seed if you intend to share the result.

Technical Details:

Repeated-letter feedback assigns at most one guessed tile to each occurrence of a letter in the answer. Exact positions take priority, so an earlier misplaced copy cannot take a match that belongs to a correctly positioned letter later in the guess.

Matching repeated letters

1. Compare every position and mark all exact matches first. Set those answer copies aside.
2. Count the copies of each letter left in the unmatched answer positions.
3. Check the remaining guess positions from left to right. Mark a letter elsewhere when a matching copy remains, then use up that copy. Otherwise, mark it as having no remaining match.

For each letter in a guess, exact and elsewhere matches establish a minimum count. If that guess also contains an unmatched copy of the same letter, the matched count is the exact number of copies in the answer. If every guessed copy is unmatched, the letter is absent. When all guessed copies match, further copies may still be possible.

Each row below is an independent first guess against the same example answer, APPLE.

For PUPPY, the P in position three is matched first. One P remains available, so the P in position one receives an elsewhere clue. By position four, both answer copies have been accounted for and the third guessed P receives ×. This is why left-to-right matching happens only after all exact positions have been settled.

Strict hard mode checks the whole history

A proposed word is treated as a possible answer and checked against every earlier guess. It is allowed only if it would reproduce every earlier clue exactly. This preserves exact positions, forbids misplaced letters from staying in ruled-out positions, excludes absent letters, and enforces both minimum and known maximum copy counts.

After the ALLEY clues above, AMPLE remains a legal guess. It keeps A first, contains one L away from positions two and three, moves E away from position four, and contains no Y. HELLO is rejected because it loses the fixed A and uses too many Ls. AMPLE is still not the answer, so passing the hard-mode check does not mean a word is correct. Standard mode allows dictionary words that contradict earlier clues, but still rejects repeated guesses.

Accepted guesses and possible answers

The guess vocabulary draws on Moby Words II. Potential answers come from a smaller curated selection, and every possible answer is also accepted as a guess.

The accepted lists include uncommon words, inflections, and some offensive terms. They do not cover every English word. Moby Words II documents an author public-domain grant from January 2001, but supplies the vocabulary source rather than this game's rules or answer schedule.

Seeds and repeatability

For the same word lists and rules, the same seed and word length select the same answer. Strict hard mode changes which guesses are legal, not which answer is selected. Different seeds can select the same word because previous answers are not removed from the selection.

Daily-style takes the UTC date when you start the puzzle, rather than the date in your local time zone. An already started puzzle does not change at midnight. There is no daily lock or official daily answer schedule.

Local History & Privacy:

Answer selection and guess checking happen in your browser. Completed-puzzle history stores the seed, word length, hard-mode setting, outcome, and guess count locally. It does not save the submitted word rows or restore unfinished puzzles after a reload. Pausing preserves the current open puzzle, not a saved board you can reopen later.

• Up to 128 distinct completed puzzles are retained in total across all settings. While a record remains, only the first completion for that seed, word length, and hard-mode setting counts. A replay cannot replace an earlier result or add another win. Daily-style and Practice are not separate records when those three values match.
• Local win streak counts consecutive wins among retained first completions with the same word length and hard-mode setting. A recorded loss or early ending stops that streak. Games at other settings are ignored, and gaps between calendar days do not break it.
• Older records are discarded when the history limit is reached. A puzzle can count again after its record is discarded or history is cleared. These are limited local records, not lifetime statistics or a record synchronized between devices.

Clear local history removes the saved records. If history is invalid, clearing it provides a fresh start. If browser storage is unavailable, play and replay still work, but results may not be saved. Clearing browser data also removes the stored history.

Puzzle results and streaks are for play and have no monetary value.

References:

• Moby Words II documentation, Grady Ward, Project Gutenberg.