What a word deduction game is
Most word games ask you to guess and then tell you how close you were. This one is the other way round. You are handed a set of facts about a hidden five-letter word — it starts with A, it contains E, it has no S — and the puzzle is to work out which word satisfies all of them at once. That is a deduction problem, and the letters are just its subject.
It is the same shape of thinking as a logic grid puzzle, except the answer is a word you already know rather than a name you have to invent. If you can read a constraint and ask "what does this rule out?", you can play.
How to play: guess the word from the clues
- Each level hides one five-letter word behind two to six clues.
- You get six guesses.
- Every guess is scored clue by clue. A green tick means that clue is true of the word you typed; a cross means it is not.
- Any word that satisfies every clue wins. The game does not have a secret preference: if your word fits all the facts, it is a correct answer.
- Two hints per level reveal one letter's position. They cost points, not guesses.
Every level is generated so that exactly one word in the game's pool of 1,170 five-letter words satisfies the full clue set. That is checked before the level is served, which is why you will never be told your word is wrong when it fits.
A worked example from a real level
These are the actual clues from a level in the game:
Contains E · No S · 1st letter is A · 3rd letter is N
Read them as four filters. Start with the two positional ones, because they are the strictest: the word begins with A and has N in third place, so the shape is A _ N _ _. It also contains an E somewhere, and it contains no S at all.
Now watch how a guess scores. Typing ABOUT gives two ticks and two crosses: it starts with A (true), it has no S (true), but it contains no E (false) and its third letter is O, not N (false).
Typing ABOVE gives three ticks and one cross: it starts with A, it contains E, it has no S — and it fails only on the third letter. That single cross is the most useful thing on the board, because it tells you the answer is one letter away from ABOVE in exactly one position.
Fill in the shape: A _ N _ _, contains E, no S. The only word that fits is ANNEX. Three clues would have left several candidates; the fourth closes it.
A word game with clues, not guesses
In a colour-grid game, a guess tells you about letters: this one is in the word, that one is not, this one is in the wrong place. Useful, but shallow — you learn about five letters at a time.
Here a guess tells you which rules your word breaks. Rules are much bigger than letters. "No S" removes roughly a fifth of the pool in one go. "Exactly two vowels" removes more than half. Once you think in rules rather than letters, six guesses is a generous budget, because each one can eliminate hundreds of candidates at once.
The practical consequence is that a bad guess here is not a wasted guess in the same way. Even a word that scores zero ticks tells you that four specific rules are false of it — which is information you did not have.
How scoring and ranks work
A solved level is worth 100 points, minus 10 for every guess beyond the first, minus 40 for every hint you used, plus a streak bonus that caps at 50. So a first-guess solve with no hints is 150, and a six-guess solve with both hints is 20. Losing a level resets the streak but not your score.
Score drives your rank: Novice, then Apprentice at 300, Solver at 900, Master Solver at 2,000 and Grand Solver at 4,000. Everything is stored in your browser, so there is no account to make.
Daily and endless
Daily is one puzzle a day, built from the US Eastern date, so everyone playing today sees the same four clues. It is the version to compare with a friend.
Endless keeps going. Level 1 starts with two or three clues; by level 7 you are facing six, which is enough to pin down a single word in the entire pool. Your score accumulates across levels, and the streak is what makes it sting when you lose one.
Four habits that make you faster
Read every clue before you type. The instinct is to start guessing immediately. The players who solve in two or three guesses spend the first ten seconds doing arithmetic on the clue set instead.
Start with the position clues. "3rd letter is N" is worth more than "Contains N", because it fixes a letter in one place rather than allowing it in five.
Trust the negative clues most. "No S", "No E", "No double letters" cut the pool harder than any positive clue, and they are the ones people skim past.
Test the clue you are least sure about. If two clues seem to overlap, type a word that separates them. A guess that satisfies one and breaks the other is worth more than a guess that satisfies both.
Who it suits
Adults who want a thinking game rather than a reflex game, because there is no timer and no speed element. Classrooms, because the clues are vocabulary facts — vowel counts, letter positions, doubled letters — that a class can argue about out loud. And anyone learning English, because a constraint like "exactly two vowels" forces you to look at how a word is built rather than what it means.
Keep going
New to clue-based puzzles? The guide to word games with clues explains the format from scratch. If you like games where a number drives the puzzle, Word Weigh asks you to hit an exact letter total instead. If you would rather browse, the word games hub lists every game on the site, and the five-letter word list is useful when a clue leaves you short of candidates.
Frequently asked questions
Is this the same as Wordle?
No. Wordle scores letters by colour, marking each one green, yellow or grey. Here a guess is scored against a written list of facts, such as No S or 3rd letter is N, and no letters are coloured at all. The win test is that list too, so the game never insists on the word it picked behind the scenes.
Can there be more than one right answer?
Not inside the game's pool of 1,170 five-letter words. Each level is built by filtering that pool clue by clue until exactly one word survives, and a level that ends with two candidates is rebuilt rather than served. The win test is still the clues themselves, so any five-letter word you type that satisfies all of them is accepted.
What do the ticks and crosses mean?
There is one mark per clue, in the same order as the clue chips above your guesses. A green tick means your word satisfies that clue and a red cross means it does not, and the chips turn green or yellow to match your latest guess. Each cross is a rule you have just proved wrong for that word, which is why even a poor guess narrows the field.
How much do hints cost?
Two hints per level, 40 points each, and the cost is only taken off if you go on to solve the level. A hint adds a new position clue such as 4th letter is T, and it never uses one of your six guesses. Every solve is worth at least 20 points, so a hint-heavy win cannot fall below that.
What are the ranks?
Rank follows your total score: Novice below 300, Apprentice at 300, Solver at 900, Master Solver at 2,000 and Grand Solver at 4,000. The badge on the card shows the rank your current score earns. Score and streak are stored in your browser, so clearing site data resets both.
Is there a daily puzzle?
Yes, and it is the mode the game opens in. Daily is seeded from the US Eastern calendar date, so every player gets the same puzzle until it rolls over at midnight Eastern. Endless has no ceiling: it keeps generating levels and asks for more clues as you climb, up to six.