How do you play?
- Tap four words you think belong together.
- Press Submit. If all four share a link, they lock in as a colored group and the category name appears.
- If not, you lose one of your four mistakes. When three of your four words are right, the game tells you that you are one away.
- Keep going until you find all four groups, or run out of mistakes.
A new board goes live every day at midnight UTC, and everyone gets the same one. Your guesses save on your device, so you can close the page and come back later.
Why do the words seem to fit more than one group?
That is the whole trick. A good board hides a few words that look like they belong in two places. CRICKET could be an insect or a sport. FOOT could be a unit of length, or the start of FOOTBALL. Only one way of sorting the sixteen words works for all four groups at once.
Our generator checks this for every board. A word only appears when no other group on that board could also claim it, so there is always exactly one answer. The decoys are fair: they look like they fit, but the full set of four always settles it.
How do you find the groups faster?
- Read every word before you tap. Say each one out loud. Some words change meaning when you hear them, like BASS or SOLE.
- Look for groups of five. If five words seem to fit one idea, one of them belongs somewhere else. Work out which one before you submit.
- Start with the group you are surest of. Each correct group removes four words, and the rest gets easier.
- Think about wordplay last. The purple group often hides a word pattern, like words that come before BALL or words with a silent K. If four words look random, test them for a hidden link.
- Shuffle when you are stuck. A new layout breaks the patterns your eyes have locked onto.
What does the hint button do?
It shows the name of one group you have not found yet, starting with the easiest. It never shows which words belong to it. Hints do not cost a mistake, so use them whenever you want a nudge.
What kinds of categories come up?
We wrote every category ourselves. They range from plain lists like fruits, card games and kitchen tools, through phrases like things you can crack, to wordplay like palindromes and words that hide an animal. The table below shows how many we wrote at each level.
Can I play more than one board a day?
Yes. The unlimited version gives you a random board every time, with no daily cap. The archive lets you go back and play any past daily board by its number. Both are linked below.
At a glance
| Words on the board | 16, in four hidden groups of four |
| Mistakes allowed | 4 |
| Puzzles in our pool | 1,000 |
| Categories we wrote | 188 |
| Hints | Yes, one group name at a time |
| Cost | Free, no account |
What do the four colors mean?
Each board has one group from each level. The color tells you how hard that group was meant to be.
| Color | Level | Categories | Examples |
|---|---|---|---|
| Straightforward | 45 | Fruits, Vegetables, Dog breeds | |
| Medium | 51 | Things with keys, Things with shells, Things with rings | |
| Tricky | 44 | Greek letters, Star signs, Greek gods | |
| Wordplay | 48 | ___BALL, FIRE___, ___HOUSE |
How many words fit more than one group?
In our bank, 225 words belong to two or more categories. These are the words that trick people. A board only shows such a word when its other groups are not on the same board, so every puzzle still has one clear answer. Some examples:
- Cricket fits Sports and Insects.
- Tesla fits Car brands and Scientists.
- Salsa fits Dances and Mexican dishes.
- Sole fits Fish and Parts of a shoe.
- Comet fits Things in the sky and Things with tails and Santa's reindeer.
What were the groups in puzzle #216?
Stuck on the last puzzle, or want to check your answers? Open the list to see all four groups.
Show the four groups in puzzle #216
- Sea creatures (straightforward): Squid, Whale, Turtle, Jellyfish
- Gym gear (medium): Dumbbell, Rope, Kettlebell, Barbell
- Famous ships (tricky): Bounty, Beagle, Enterprise, Titanic
- ___POINT (wordplay): Power, Check, Bullet, Boiling