Reading the Grid Before You Start

The board can wait a moment

You open Pathwords and the letters are already there. On a Classic day there are sixteen of them. Your finger can touch a tile immediately. Some players do that. Others hold still and look.

They notice where the vowels sit. They notice which corner looks crowded, because the neighbors already resemble pieces of words. They notice which letter pairs are touching. Then a trail starts. Or a trail is already going, and the look never happened.

Call it a scan if you want. It's a habit of looking, and it's optional. The first trail can start the moment the board appears. Starting straight in is playing the game correctly too.

The glance doesn't move your rank, and it isn't something you practice. Skip it and you haven't missed a rule.

What Pathwords is, in one pass

Pathwords at pathwords.co is a letter-path puzzle. You spell words by moving through tiles that touch, in any of eight directions: up, down, left, right, and the four diagonals. A word is one continuous trail. A tile used in that word cannot be used again until the word is over. The next word may use that tile again.

Every board has a list. Listed words score 2 points per letter. They move your rank through Start, Good, Great, Awesome, and Genius. Genius is 100% of the listed-word maximum. Real words that are not on the list are bonus words. They score 1 point per letter in their own pot. They count toward a fifth star, and they never change Genius.

There are three sizes. Mini is a 3×3 board 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. It is the same board for everyone that day, and it flips at your device's local midnight.

A try has to be a legal path before it can be a word. A jump, a reused tile, or a word below the size minimum is rejected before any "not a word" check. If you want help later, a hint points at a listed word you have not found. Rotate only changes the view. Neighbors stay put when the screen turns. There's no public leaderboard. Your progress is saved in this browser only.

What the eyes tend to catch

The eye usually lands on the vowels first. A crowded corner can show up instead, or a pair you already know from ordinary spelling. Any one of those is enough. The order changes by the day.

On a Classic board a middle tile touches eight others. An edge tile that is not a corner touches five. A corner tile touches three. A vowel near the middle has more exits than a vowel in a corner. More on that geometry is in why diagonals count.

A corner looks busy when the tiles around it already resemble pieces of familiar words. A quiet corner is harder to read, and those tiles are still legal steps. Pairs such as CH, TH, ST, and EA matter when the two letters touch, side by side or on a diagonal. A pair can open a word or sit unused. Stems and endings once a trail is moving belong to the moment after you have started. You can also be three letters in before any of this occurs.

A made-up Classic grid

Here's an invented Classic board. It's made up, not a live daily, and nothing below comes from today's list.

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

An A sits in the top row, third letter across. The second row holds E, then a second A. The third row holds I in that same inner column. The bottom row holds O, second letter across. There is no U. Y sits in the bottom-right corner, and for this look it stays with the corners. The vowel tiles are the two A's, the E, the I, and the O.

The left column reads C, T, S, P. The right column reads R, M, N, Y. None of those eight is A, E, I, or O. The vowels sit in the middle two columns. E, the second A, and I each touch eight neighbors. The top A is on the upper edge and touches five. O is on the lower edge and touches five. C, R, P, and Y are the corners, three neighbors each. A trail that wants a vowel on this grid bends inward.

The top-left looks busy because of the cluster around it. C touches H beside it, T under it, and E on the diagonal. H, one step in, touches five tiles: C, the top A, T, E, and the second A. Both A's and the pair CH are in that patch. The top-right is tighter. R touches only the top A, the second A, and M. The bottom-left has S over P and L beside O. The bottom-right is the quiet one. Y touches N, D, and I, and nothing else.

CH runs across the top-left. The second row can be read straight through as T, E, A, M, with EA in the middle of that run. ST runs down the left side, S under T. IN sits on the third row. PO sits on the bottom. T also touches H on a corner, so TH is present even though the two letters are not in the same row. ST can be the pair that jumps out, and you can still start on the top row.

From the glance to a trail

A start tile ends the glance. After that you are on one path. The steps have to touch, and a tile cannot repeat. On this pretend board the second row is already a word, and two other trails grow from the same area.

Start on T at the left of the second row. Step right to E. Step right to the A beside E. Step right to M. That spells TEAM. On a real day it would count as listed, at 2 points a letter toward Genius, or as bonus, at 1 point a letter in the other pot. This grid is made up, so that split isn't settled here. The path is what you can check.

From the busy corner, start on C. Step right to H. Step right to the A in the top row. Step right to R. That spells CHAR. Step down to M, which sits under R, and the path spells CHARM. The CH pair was the front of the word. The A in that trail is the top one. The A in TEAM is the other tile. They are not interchangeable.

For a diagonal, start on T again. Step right to E. Step right to the second A. Step up and right onto R. That A and that R share a corner. The path spells TEAR. It uses the EA already in view, and the same R as CHARM. After either word ends, that R is free again.

Any one of those can be the first trail. The rest can wait. CHAR also tempts CHART, and the only T does not touch R. That jump is rejected before any word check. You keep a trail whose letters touch.

You can start with no look

The daily has no clock. The look is not on a timer, and neither is an immediate start. Everyone shares the letters until local midnight on the device. No leaderboard records who saw a pair first.

You might start on C, or on E, or down on Y. The path checks stay the same. Rotate only changes the view. A later hint points at a listed word you have not found, whether or not you looked first. Mega is a 5×5 with the same four-letter minimum, and the choice is the same.

A made-up Mini board

Mini is a 3×3 with a three-letter minimum, so the glance is the same kind of look on fewer tiles. This board is made up. It is not a live daily.

B E A
R O T
H I N

E and A sit on the top row, O in the center, I on the bottom. Four vowels in nine tiles. The center of a 3×3 touches every other tile, so O is a neighbor to all eight. The top row is the loud patch: B, E, A in a line, T under A. N in the bottom-right is a corner with three neighbors, same as B, A, and H. It feels quieter because the top line is easier to read.

Start on B. Step right to E, right to A, down to T. That spells BEAT. Start on B again. Step down and right to O, up and right to A, down to T. That spells BOAT. Those two middle steps are diagonals. B, A, and T appear in both words, and a tile comes back when the word ends. Starting on B with no glance still leaves both paths available.

The reason to come back

You don't have to name what you saw. During a sitting, where the vowels sit can stay a tug toward the center.

People come back because the board is enjoyable to sit with. Pathwords is a puzzle for fun. Enjoyment is the reason to return, on a day when you scan the corners and on a day when you start at once.

Pathwords at pathwords.co is not ThinkFun PathWords, not pathwords.co.uk, and not other apps with a similar name.

Open today's board at pathwords.co. If you want a quiet look, notice where the vowels sit, which corner looks busy, and which pairs jump out. Then trace a word. If you would rather move now, trace a word.

Published by Pathwords.