How Squaredle Quest works
The numbers on the tiles, the two word lists, and why some days are harder than others.
Trace a word
Press a letter and drag through neighbouring tiles — up, down, sideways or diagonally. A tile can be used once per word. Four letters minimum.
Or just type it
The keyboard works too. Type the letters and press Enter. Backspace rubs out the last one, Space switches between two routes that spell the same word, and Escape clears what you've started.
Letting go outside the board still submits — the word you drew is the word you get.
Finish the list
The puzzle is complete when every word on the list is found. Anything else real you spot along the way still counts — see below.
Reading the board
- Tint
- The more words still hiding on a tile, the warmer it looks. The board cools as you find them.
- Top right
- How many unfound words still run through this tile.
- Bottom left
- How many unfound words start here — the one that tells you where to put your finger down.
- Grey
- Nothing left here. Every word that used this tile has been found.
Both numbers can be switched off in Settings if you'd rather work without them.
The list, and everything else
Every real word in the grid is in the puzzle. The list is what you must find to finish. Extras are all the others — and they score exactly the same.
Nothing real is ever rejected for being "not a word". If it's English and it's in the grid, it counts.
Scoring
A four-letter word scores 1, and every letter after that adds one. So BOAT is 1 and BOATERS is 4.
Words you reveal with a hint score nothing. They finish the board; they don't pad the number.
Hints, and reveals
Four free hints, each its own tick-box, none of which names a word: first letters, first two, last letter, and a map of what's left by starting letter and length.
Reveals are earned: one to begin with, one more for every eight words you find unaided, up to five.
Turn the board
Two buttons beneath the grid turn it: 45 degrees, or a quarter turn. The letters keep their places and every word still reads the same — only the angle you are looking from changes.
It is the cheapest help on the page. A word your eye has slid past twenty times often appears the moment the grid is standing somewhere else.
The clock
Every board is timed while you are on it, and the time comes with you — a board picked up on a laptop carries on from where the phone left it.
It matters in one place: two boards on the same score are separated by whichever was faster. Hide it in Settings if watching it makes you slower.
Make it yours
Settings holds two themes — light is a broadsheet, dark is a lit arcade — with their own accent colours, and a choice of letterform on the tiles.
Also there: where the word list sits, how the board moves when you turn it, the tile numbers, the clock, sound and haptics.
The week gets harder
Two things move together: the grid grows, and the words are drawn from deeper in the language.
| Day | Grid | Words | Rating |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mon | 4 × 4 | 12–20 | Gentle |
| Tue | 4 × 4 | 16–26 | Easy |
| Wed | 4 × 5 | 24–36 | Steady |
| Thu | 5 × 5 | 32–48 | Tricky |
| Fri | 5 × 5 | 42–60 | Hard |
| Sat | 5 × 5 | 50–70 | Punishing |
| Sun | 5 × 6 | 60–80 | Brutal |
Two puzzles a day
Standard is the main board and grows through the week. Express stays 3 × 3 — a few minutes rather than half an hour.
Express is not the easy way out all week. The grid never grows, but the words get more numerous and less common as the days pass: a dozen or so on Monday, up to thirty by Sunday.
Streaks
Each mode keeps its own streak, and each lapses on its own. Miss a day and it goes back to zero — but your best is kept.
Leaderboard
One board a day, one ranking. Highest score leads; level scores are split by the faster board, and level again by whoever used fewer reveals.
Anyone can read it, and finishing without an account still shows you where you would have come. Taking the place needs an account and a nickname — and a board you end early takes none.