Pathwords and Crosswords

Two shelves, one aisle

You can enjoy both of these and still blur them when you describe your morning. They live in the word-games aisle, and both deal in ordinary English.

The work is different. A crossword gives you white squares, black blocks, and clues. You supply the letters so the answers lock across and down. Pathwords gives you the letters already, on a grid, and asks for many listed words along trails from tile to tile.

Nothing here ranks them. A crossword is a pleasure of its own, and Pathwords is a puzzle for enjoyment.

What a crossword asks

In a typical American crossword, the grid is white squares and black blocks. Answers run across and down. Where they cross, they share a square, and so they share a letter. One word helps you read the next.

You start from the clues, not from a tray of letters already filled in. Sometimes a few squares are given. Most of the letters are yours to supply. You try a word for a clue, then you see whether the crossing can live with the same letter.

In a typical American daily, every letter belongs to one across answer and one down answer. An unsure square gets a second look from the other direction. If both clues accept the letter, it can stay. If they don't, you erase it.

You're filling one interlocking set. Black blocks are the walls that end an entry. In a typical American crossword, an answer runs straight across or straight down. It doesn't turn a corner mid-word.

A newspaper crossword is usually self-paced. Some crossword apps add a clock. That clock belongs to the app or the contest. It doesn't describe every crossword.

Clues often go past a plain definition. A puzzle may ask for a name, a title, or a little wordplay, and that range is part of why people stay with crosswords.

What Pathwords asks

Pathwords at pathwords.co is a letter-path puzzle. The letters are on the board before you begin. You spell a word by moving through tiles that touch, in eight directions: up, down, left, right, and the four diagonals. A word is one continuous trail. You can't reuse a tile inside that word. The tile is free again for the next word. Drag through the tiles, tap them in order, or type. If a typed word can be walked here, the tiles light up.

Every board has a list of everyday words. Listed words score 2 points per letter and move the rank through Start, Good, Great, Awesome, and Genius. Genius is 100% of the listed-word maximum. Other real words are bonus words. They score 1 point per letter in their own pot, they count toward a fifth star, and they never change Genius. You can leave once the listed words are found.

Mini is 3×3, with a three-letter minimum. Classic is 4×4, with a four-letter minimum. Mega is 5×5, also with a four-letter minimum.

The official daily is untimed, and it's the same board for everyone that day. It flips at your device's local midnight. There's no public leaderboard. Progress is saved in this browser only.

Path errors are checked first. A jump, a reused tile, or a try under the size minimum is rejected before any "not a word" check. A hint, if you want one, points at a listed word you have not found. Rotate only changes the view.

The note on Pathwords and Boggle compares Pathwords with another game on a grid of letters you can already see. A crossword asks you to earn the letters from the clues.

A crossword corner, made up

This fragment is invented. It isn't a published puzzle, and it isn't a full grid. A typical American daily continues until the white squares are filled, with every letter in one across word and one down word. Several letters below sit in only one word, because the corner stops early.

C A R T
R A C E
O # # N
W # # T

The # marks are black blocks. Four made-up clues:

• Across, top row: CART. A small wagon.
• Across, second row: RACE. A contest you run.
• Down, first column: CROW. A black bird.
• Down, last column: TENT. A canvas shelter.

CART is the top row. CROW drops from that same C through R, O, and W. RACE is the second row, and its R is also the second letter of CROW. TENT drops from the last letter of CART, through the last letter of RACE, then N, then a second T. The blocks between O and N, and between W and T, mean those rows are not across words.

No letter here was printed in advance. You might enter CART because the clue said wagon. The shelter clue has to live with that final T. Write CARP instead, and the last column opens with P, then E, N, and T. That spells PENT, not TENT. The crossing is what makes you erase, or what lets the letter stay.

The same kinds of words on a Classic board

Here's a separate invention, a Pathwords Classic grid. It is not a live daily. The list in this section is pretend.

C A R T
L N E O
P I D A
H U M S

The letters are already there. You look for everyday words the trails will hold.

CART is the top row: C, A, R, T, each step to the right. On the crossword sketch, CART was a guess from a clue.

CARE uses that start, then steps down: C, A, R, and the E under the R.

LANE bends. L is the first tile of the second row. Step diagonally up to A, down to N, and right to E. A diagonal counts when the next tile shares a side or a corner.

PINE starts at P, goes right to I, up to N, and right to E. PLAN starts at the same P, steps up to L, diagonally up to A, and down to N. PINE and PLAN can both use the P, because each new word starts fresh.

ROAD starts at the top-row R, steps diagonally down to O, down to A, and left to D. TOAD starts at T and then takes that O, that A, and that D. HIDE starts at the bottom-left H, moves diagonally up to I, right to D, and up to E.

CARD fails on the shape. C, A, R is fine along the top. The only D is two rows below that R, with E between them, so R to D is a jump. The jump is rejected before the game asks whether CARD is a word. A crossword can still clue CARD. There the limit is the clue and the crossing.

TENT fails because this board has one T. The sketch had two T squares, one at each end of the down word. A trail cannot revisit a tile, so TENT will not spell. CROW fails too. From C the next letter would need a neighboring R, and this R is two columns away, with A between them. CROW was a fair down answer in the fragment. It isn't a trail on these sixteen letters.

For this example only, the pretend list is CART, CARE, LANE, PINE, ROAD, and HIDE. Those score 2 points per letter and move the rank toward Genius. TOAD or PLAN, if accepted and not on that list, score 1 point per letter in the bonus pot. They don't move Genius. A live Classic list is longer, and the ranks are a percentage of that list. Mini walks the same way on nine tiles and allows three-letter words. Mega uses twenty-five tiles and keeps the four-letter floor.

What changes when you sit down

A crossword letter is a try. You write it, and a crossing either supports it or sends you back. A Pathwords letter is already on the board. You can't add a missing tile. You need a legal trail and a word the board accepts.

A crossword is one locked set. Change a letter and other entries feel it. Pathwords is many trails on the same tiles. Finding CARE doesn't clear the A or the E. The next word may use them, because a new trail starts with every tile free.

A crossword can look filled in and still miss a clue. You might notice only when another crossing complains. A path board refuses a jump before it checks the word.

Both can be a solo habit. A crossword is also easy to talk through at a table, one person on the across clues and one on the down. The sitting at pathwords.co is on your own screen, with no public leaderboard.

A daily built around one hidden word is a third shelf. The note on one-word dailies covers it. A crossword gives you many answers, locked by shared letters. Pathwords gives you the letters first, then a list of trails.

Which one fits the hour

Choose a crossword when you want clues. The pleasure is a definition that nearly says the word, a crossing that settles a shaky letter, and a late square both directions require.

Open Pathwords when you want the letters in view and a list you can finish. Mini, Classic, and Mega are sizes of the same game. The daily waits. Leave in the middle, and this browser keeps what you found until you finish or clear the site data.

You can keep both in the same week. One hour wants clues. Another wants a finger on tiles that are already filled.

The name on this site

pathwords.co is published by Pathwords and is not ThinkFun PathWords, not pathwords.co.uk, and not other lookalike apps.

Open today's board at pathwords.co. If you would rather fill clues, stay with the crossword. If you would rather walk letters that are already on the grid, it's there.

Published by Pathwords.