Word Circle by Big T

Drag through the letters in the circle to spell a word, then let go.

The letters don't have to be next to each other — drag from any letter to any other in one continuous motion.

Every word on the list uses the same set of circle letters.

Find them all to finish the puzzle. Words you've found stay filled in.

Rearranges the letters in the circle.

Purely cosmetic — it changes nothing about the puzzle. It's for when your eyes have stopped seeing new combinations in the current arrangement.

Valid words that aren't on the list still count for something.

They go in the bonus jar, score five points a letter, and — most usefully — earn you hint tokens. Try words even when you can't see them on the list.

Your running score for this puzzle.

Listed words and bonus words both score. Finishing without spending a hint earns a bonus, as does finishing quickly, so hints have a real cost.

Ranks up as your total score grows.

Appears at the end of a puzzle when you cross into a new rank.

Reveals one letter somewhere in the puzzle, chosen for you.

You pick which square gets revealed.

Tap the token, then tap the square you want. Tap the prompt underneath to cancel without spending it.

Opens up roughly a sixth of what's left, spread across several words.

The biggest of the three, and the rarest — worth saving for a puzzle that's genuinely stuck rather than one that's merely slow.

Tokens come from solving puzzles and from finding bonus words.

Every puzzle you solve earns a 🎲; every third earns a 👉 and every fifth a ✨. On top of that, every 10 bonus words you've ever found earns a 🎲, and every 25 earns a 👉. Bonus-word hunting is the fastest way to build a stock of hints.

The longest word on the list is exactly as long as the circle.

A six-letter circle always has a six-letter answer, and it is the single most useful thing to find early — it tells you the letters really do combine, and it is worth the most points. If you are stuck at the start, look for that word rather than picking off threes.

Take a stem and try each ending in turn: S, ED, ER, Y, LY, ING.

Systematic beats inspired here. Having found CARE, try CARES, CARED, CARER. The plural S in particular is easy to forget when the S is sitting on the far side of the circle from the word you just drew.

RE, UN, DE and IN turn a word you have into one you do not.

The same trick from the other end, and the one people skip. If the circle holds an R and an E, check whether any word you have already found takes RE in front of it.

The circle's arrangement shapes which combinations you notice.

After a few minutes you stop seeing past the current layout — the letters group themselves into the same shapes every time you look. Shuffling changes nothing about the puzzle and quite a lot about what you spot. It costs nothing, so use it the moment you stall.

Work out which vowels you have, then build around them.

Every word needs one. Knowing you are working with A and E only, and where they sit, narrows the guesswork faster than sweeping the consonants does.

Anything valid still scores, and it is how you earn hints.

There are usually as many bonus words available as listed ones, and at the larger circles there are more — so the list is not close to the full set of words you can make. Guessing costs nothing when you are wrong.

Easy 4 letters, Medium 5, Hard 6, Expert 7.

Each letter added multiplies the combinations rather than adding to them, which is why the list grows so much faster than the circle does: about 5 words at Easy, 10 at Medium, 18 at Hard, and 23 at Expert.

Roughly 3 bonus words are available at Easy against about 35 at Expert.

By Hard there are more bonus words available than listed ones. If you are playing to bank hint tokens, the larger circles are far more productive — the same guessing habit pays several times as often.

Show or hide the solve timer.

Switch between light and dark, and pick a colour theme.

Landscape only. Puts the letter circle under your dominant hand.

Puts the circle at the top and the word list below it.