The short version
Two teams. Each team gets its own secret word. Both words are the same length and come from the same difficulty tier. The first team to work out its word wins the round. Most rounds wins the match.
On your turn, do one thing
| Move | What happens |
|---|---|
| Guess a letter | It’s checked against your own word. A hit flips every copy of that letter. Hit or miss, your turn ends, unless a chaos event says otherwise. |
| Block a letter | Lock one letter out of the other team’s alphabet for the rest of the round. You get one block per round. It ends your turn. |
| Solve | Type your whole word. Right, and the round is yours. Wrong, and the other team takes the round. |
Guessing is safe but slow. Solving is fast but fatal. Every round is a question about when to stop being careful.
Clues run on a shared clock
Every word has three clues, written from sneaky to nearly a giveaway. Clue one is showing from the start. Clue two unlocks after four moves and clue three after eight. Moves are counted across both teams, not per team.
That’s the rule that makes Word War an actual contest rather than two people doing puzzles side by side. Stall and guess cautiously, and you’re feeding the other side better clues too.
Every six moves, chaos
After every sixth move a chaos event takes over the screen and applies to both teams. The same event never fires twice in a row, and an event that would do nothing right now (Amnesty when nothing is blocked, for example) is never dealt.
| Event | How long | Effect |
|---|---|---|
| Echo | Each team’s next turn | For each team's next turn, every guess is checked in both words. Careful: you could finish theirs for them. |
| Vowel Rush | Each team’s next turn | For each team's next turn, guessing a vowel doesn't end your turn. |
| Hot Hands | Each team’s next turn | For each team's next turn, every correct letter earns another guess. |
| Speed Round | Each team’s next turn | Each team's next turn lasts 10 seconds instead of 30. |
| Lucky Dip | Right away | Each team gets one hidden letter flipped for free. |
| Clue Drop | Right away | The next clue unlocks right now for both teams. |
| Recharge | Right away | Both teams get their block back. |
| Amnesty | Right away | Every blocked letter is free again, for both teams. |
The clock
Each turn is 30 seconds (10 during a Speed Round). Run out and the turn simply passes, with no penalty. The clock stops while a team is typing a solve, while a chaos card is up and between rounds, so it only ever runs while someone is actually thinking.
How to get better
Read the riddle before you touch the keyboard
The first clue is a riddle, not a definition. “The longer I live, the shorter I get” doesn’t describe a candle. It describes how a candle behaves. Say the answer out loud before you guess a single letter; you’ll often have it.
Count the tiles
Word length is public from move one. A six-letter answer rules out most of what your team is shouting.
Spend your block late
A block is worth most when the other team is one or two letters away and you can see which letter they need. Blocking a vowel on move one feels clever and usually isn’t.
Watch the shared counter
If you’re a clue behind on understanding, a cheap guess on move three hands both teams clue two on move four. Sometimes that’s exactly what you want.
Echo cuts both ways
During Echo every letter you guess is also checked in their word. The letter you most want might be the letter that finishes theirs. Look at their pattern before you commit.
Know when to gamble
If they’re one letter from winning and you’re three away, the careful play loses. A solve is the only move that can win the round this turn, and the bot knows it too.
What’s in the box
98 hand-written riddles across three tiers. Easy is concrete objects (CLOUD, TOWEL, PIANO), medium is ideas and science (ORBIT, GRAVITY), and hard is wordplay, including a six-letter word with no A, E, I, O or U in it. In a mixed match the tiers ramp up, so the last round is always the tense one.