How to play

1. The grid. A 5×5 board where every row and every column reads as a real five-letter word — ten words in total.
2. Fixed cells. A few cells are pre-filled with a different colour. They cannot be moved. They're the scaffolding.
3. Swap to solve. The other letters are scrambled. Drag any non-fixed letter onto another non-fixed cell to swap them.
4. Lock in. When a row or column matches its solution, the whole line flashes and locks. Locked cells can't move.
5. Win. Lock all rows and columns. Faster solves with fewer moves rank higher; ratings update each game.

Hint and Give up

The Hint button reveals one row or column's target word as text — you still have to arrange the letters yourself. Each hint shows in a panel below the board and disappears when its line is solved. Hints used count against your score. Give up shows the solution but counts as abandoned (no leaderboard entry, no rating change).

Definitions

When a row or column locks, a short definition for the word appears briefly above the board. After lock, the definition stays accessible — hover (or long-press on touch) any locked tile to see it again. Cells that sit at the intersection of a locked row and column show both definitions. Definitions pull from Wiktionary and may take a moment after a puzzle's first ever play to populate; missing entries are silent.

Bonus discoveries

If a swap happens to spell a real word in a row or column — one that isn't the puzzle's target word for that position — it counts as a 🪄 discovery. A small counter appears next to the timer; hover it to see your finds. Discoveries are cosmetic and don't affect rating; they're there to reward exploration.

Daily cadence

A new puzzle drops every day at UTC midnight. If you're mid-game when the day rolls over, a "New puzzle ready" button appears in the top bar — click to jump to today's. Puzzles you've already solved or seen stay reachable via your history. Difficulty ramps over the week — Monday easiest, Sunday hardest. Themes (when present) bias the word list; the puzzle is still solvable without knowing the theme.

Languages

Three variants run in parallel: English only, French only, and EN+FR — a bilingual mode whose grid mixes words from both languages. Switch with the language pill in the top-right of the header. Each variant has its own daily puzzle, leaderboard, and rating, so changing language mid-day starts a fresh game. In EN+FR mode the lock-flash is colored by which language(s) the locked word belongs to.

Ratings and leaderboards

Each completed puzzle updates a Glicko-2 rating per language, factoring in your time, moves, hints, and away- moves (tiles you moved off a correct position). Ratings become visible after three rated games per language. Two leaderboards exist: per-puzzle (best times for that specific puzzle) and aggregate (current rating).

Identity

You don't sign up. The first time you visit, the browser generates a cryptographic keypair stored locally — no email, no password. Pick a username via the post-game flow to appear on leaderboards. To move your identity to another device: Settings → Export. The export expires in 5 minutes.

Sharing

The "Copy share text" button after solving copies a short summary plus an emoji grid showing how your solve unfolded across the board. Each cell is colored by when its row or column first locked (fastest 🟩, then 🟦 🟨 🟧 🟥; ⚫ marks fixed cells; 🎯 marks the two cells of the move that won the puzzle). The summary line shows ⏱ time, 🔁 swap count, and any 💡 hints, ↩️ wrong-way moves, 🪄 discoveries, 📈 rating change, or 🌟 four-lock badge.