Journal

What the journal is

A Pathwords word is one connected trail. From a tile you step to a neighbour that shares a side or a corner. You do not reuse a tile inside that same word. You can drag, tap, or type. When the letters spell a listed everyday word, you list it, and then you start another trail. One path at a time is the whole gesture. The journal writes about that gesture from several angles.

Two kinds of readers land here. One already plays and wants a calmer account of a choice they have felt on the grid. The other arrived from search, sometimes beside a different product with a similar name, and needs this site named plainly. Both can stop after a single note. Enjoyment is the reason to return, not a promise about what the sitting will do to you. Pathwords is a puzzle for enjoyment, not a medical brain-training program.

What the journal is not

This index is not a second How to play. The five rules live on that page: words are paths, three ways to enter a word, scoring, ranks and hints, and Speed Streak. A journal note may mention a rule so the note makes sense. It does not replace the rulebook, and it does not invent a second ruleset that disagrees with the board.

It is not a second About page. About holds who publishes the site, what is free, the short pipeline for how a board is made, and the name collisions. The journal points at those facts and then stays with one craft question. If you want the product story in one place, About is that place. If you want the pipeline with the decisions left in, the board-building note is the longer walk.

It is not the FAQ. FAQ answers one question in a paragraph. A journal note takes longer because it is about a design choice, not a lookup. It is also not a medical page. The claim lines at the end of this index are the boundary. The notes do not add a training curriculum on top of them.

How the notes are grouped

The list at the bottom is newest first, one shelf, every note once. The groups here are only a map. A note can sit near two groups. The map is not a second table of contents.

Craft of play

The largest group is the sitting itself. Eight-way adjacency is the geometry. Sides and corners both count. Without the diagonal, many ordinary words would never become a path. Why Pathwords allows diagonal steps shows that with invented samples, not a live daily. Short listed words often open the board first and map a neighborhood. Stems, endings, and letter pairs show up while you chase those words. Noticing them is curiosity, not a vocabulary exam. You hold one trail at a time. When it lands or breaks, you begin again. If a trail dies, try another corner, start short, or leave and come back. Hints are optional: three per puzzle per mode, an arrow across the first three letters of a listed word you have not found. They nudge. They do not point at bonus.

Listed words pay two points a letter and they alone move rank. Bonus words pay one point a letter, sit beside the rank, and count toward a fifth star. On general boards one bonus word is the Word of the Day. Kids boards omit it. Genius is 100% of the listed maximum. Stars mark this sitting only. They are not a public score and not an IQ label. Leave at Genius, leave earlier, or stay for bonus. The official daily is untimed. Speed Streak, three fast finds inside five seconds, can light a short multiplier in its own pot. It does not change Genius, and you can ignore it.

Mini, Classic, and Mega are rooms, not a ladder. Mini is 3×3 with a three-letter minimum. Classic is 4×4 with a four-letter minimum, and it is the default. Mega is 5×5, still a four-letter floor, with more ground. Kids, on this web game, is a Settings toggle for a gentler Classic or Mini lexicon. It does not filter Mega. A separate Pathwords Kids app exists. The kids note is that gentler-list story. This page does not invent features for the app.

Habit and soft engagement

Five quiet minutes can be enough. A warm-up, in the everyday sense, is an untimed board before the day gets loud. Focus means reading letters, holding the trail, and choosing the next tile. None of that is a program. Open Mini with coffee or Mega in a quiet evening, and stop before Genius if sleep matters more than a fifth star.

There is no public leaderboard. Genius and stars stay on your sitting. Progress for a started board stays in this browser until you finish it or clear site data, so you can leave mid-trail and return. The day rolls at local midnight. One automatic streak freeze per calendar month covers a single miss. Archive play does not touch that count. Skip when life is loud. We do not sell the puzzle with streak guilt.

Today's board is the shared dated sitting. The free archive keeps past official days, each with its own hint pool. Play Another on the web, and New Game or Play Another Puzzle on iOS, are optional local extra play on a fresh board. Same craft. Not a second official daily. Close the tab whenever the sitting feels done.

Category clarity

Search files many word games into one aisle. The journal keeps the shelves apart. A one-word daily asks you to guess a hidden target. Here the letters are already on the grid, and the ask is many listed words along legal paths. A classic word search hides printed answers in straight lines. Pathwords asks you to build the words. Other connect-letters dailies, the kind people meet as Squares or Squaredle, share the gesture and not this site, this list, or this product shape.

Brain-training apps often speak in outcomes. We refuse that. Puzzle for enjoyment is the shelf. Word finding here means familiar words on a path, not a vocabulary test. The neuroplasticity note uses that word in everyday learning terms, then keeps Pathwords as a sitting, not a medical program. We do not invent citations.

The name is crowded, so a few notes repeat a correction. This site is pathwords.co, published by Pathwords. It is not ThinkFun PathWords or PathWords Jr. It is not pathwords.co.uk. It is not Pathwords App by Richard Arnold. The iOS app Pathwords Puzzle is a related property from the same publisher. This journal does not sell it, and it does not invent a premium tier for the web.

How boards are built

The last group is the workshop. A generator proposes nine, sixteen, or twenty-five letters. The engine proves every listed word is reachable on that grid, on the same eight-way graph you walk. A jumped tile, a reused tile, or a path that leaves the board fails before the puzzle ships.

Validation uses ENABLE, the public-domain Enhanced North American Benchmark Lexicon. Frequency rankings from open corpora only order the pool. We do not redistribute that data. Everyday survivors tend to become the listed set. Rarer leftovers tend to become bonus, or they drop. A person hand-caps the list so a rare entry is not required just because the path is clean.

What ships is a dated file, not a public answer page. The archive is how you replay a day. Mega shares the Classic pipeline on a 5×5. The Kids toggle is a tighter lexicon on Classic or Mini. Typing is a first-class way in on the same graph, and there is no login on the web. Found words live in this browser.

How to use the journal with the rest of the site

If you are new, keep the order short. Play for the feel of the board. How to play when a rule is fuzzy. About for the product story and the name collisions. FAQ for one question in a paragraph. The journal when a choice you already met wants a longer note, such as leaving at Genius or why there is no clock. You can also arrive from search on a single note and find the board later. That path is fine. Each note should say what Pathwords is, and leave a way back to play.

Overlapping notes still have different jobs. Diagonals are the geometry. Short words are how a sitting often starts. Letter patterns are what you notice once you are moving. One path at a time is the gesture. The stuck note is for a dead trail. The timer note is why the board waits. Read one. You do not earn a better puzzle by finishing the shelf. The privacy policy, if you need it, is at /privacy. Write to privacy@pathwords.co for a correction.

Lines we keep on purpose

Pathwords is a puzzle for enjoyment, not a medical brain-training program. Warm-up, focus, and habit stay everyday words: a short sitting, attention on the path, showing up when you can. We do not claim a sitting raises IQ, rewires a brain, is clinically proven, or prevents, treats, cures, or delays any condition. No invented study. If you need medical care, that conversation is not this site.

Scoring is puzzle feedback. Two points a letter on listed words. One point a letter on bonus. Ranks run Start, Good, Great, Awesome, and Genius across the listed pot. A fifth star is optional bonus. Speed points do not move Genius. Play, the archive, and three hints per board are free on the web. A house video can add two hints if a listed word is still missing. Rotation is visual only. Letter-count assist, from 40% of listed points, is a nudge you can ignore. The list below is the whole shelf, newest first.