Wordscapes is a free puzzle game that’s designed to challenge your language skills. Combine a series of letters to form as many words as possible and fill out a crossword puzzle!

What is Wordscapes About?

First released in 2017, Wordscapes has become a viral phenomenon played by people of all ages and walks of life. Wordscapes is a mix between a crossword puzzle and a letter-combining game like Boggle. It’s a great way to tickle your brain with something that’s challenging but not difficult, giving you a sense of accomplishment when you solve each puzzle.

One of the later Wordscapes levels

Understanding The Basics

Each Wordscapes puzzle involves two elements: a crossword-like grid of squares and a circle of letters at the bottom. In order to solve the puzzle, you tap a letter and then swipe to other letters in the circle, lifting up when you’re done. Your indirect goal is to swipe through all of the words that the letters in the circle can make. If you’ve got “TATRAC” in the circle, for example, you’d have to swipe through RAT, CAT, TRACK, CAR, TART, CART, and a number of other words in order to solve the puzzle.

A Wordscapes daily puzzle

Adding In The Crossword

It’s not always easy to quickly come up with every word that can be made with a combination of letters. That’s where the crossword section of Wordscapes comes in. Each time you make a word, it’s filled into a corresponding set of squares in the crossword section of the screen. Just like a normal crossword, these crosswords have lots of intersections, allowing you to see details about words that you haven’t guessed. If you saw a three-letter word starting with “A” and ending with “T” for the above letters, for example, you would be able to quickly guess words like ART and ACT. This adds another dimension to your search and allows you to target specific words as you progress through the puzzle.

Another Wordscapes daily puzzle

Multiple Modes

Wordscapes’ crossword game is the primary app that most people talk about when they refer to Wordscapes, but it’s worth mentioning that it’s far from the only version of the software. Wordscapes makes a word search, a version of the game with no crossword, and a shape-based puzzle game called Wordscapes Shapes. These puzzles are all found in different apps, but they’re worth checking out if you love the original Wordscapes.

Wordscapes is a puzzle game that’s meant to challenge your brain and language skills. The best way to get good at Wordscapes is to read lots of books and to play Wordscapes for a few minutes each day. Reading books will help expose you to unusual words and words that you might not see at work or in text conversations with your friends. Playing for a few minutes each day will help your brain get used to the activity and will cause the neural pathways used while playing Wordscapes to grow stronger, allowing you to get better and faster each day.

The actual level 42, not the fake one shown in the App Store

Techniques For Success

If you’re looking for some quick tips for success, experts recommend starting with long words whenever you can. The longer a word is, the more connections it can have in the crossword puzzle. Once you’ve got a few words in the puzzle, you’ll get big hints about the rest of the words that you need to find. Remember to factor in the number of letters, the letters you know, and which words you’ve already found in the puzzle. Common English patterns involving letter order can be quite handy to know here. You don’t usually have more than two consonants without a vowel, certain letters often appear in pairs, and adding “s” to make a word plural or “ly” to make a word an adverb can give you lots of free words without any effort.

Note the three-letter word starting with “D” and ending with “E.” Due, perhaps?

When In Doubt, Brute Force It - Or Cheat

There’s no penalty for trying offbeat combinations of letters in Wordscapes. You’ll probably find that doing this randomly isn’t a great use of your time. Where this technique really shines is when you’ve got most of a word in the crossword and you just need to narrow down the position of the other letters. Don’t be afraid to just throw stuff out there if you can’t think of something. Sometimes you just don’t know the word.

Would you have guessed “OOH” without brute force?

If you’re totally stuck (or you’re trying to impress your friends with your high scores), the puzzles in Wordscapes aren’t random. This means that you can simply look up the answers to the first several thousand puzzles online. There are a number of reasons why you might not want to do this, but the option exists should you want it.

Are you a Wordscapes pro? What level are you on? Do you have any tips for gathering coins quickly? Let us know in the comments below!