How to play Netherword

A word game against a clock. This is everything the game counts.

Trace words

Drag through touching letters — across, up, down or diagonally, turning as often as you like — and lift your finger to play the word. Words need at least three letters, or four on the large board.

Scoring

Every tile shows its letter's value in the corner. A word scores the sum of its letter values times its length. In English, GLOVE is 2 + 1 + 1 + 4 + 1 = 9, times 5 letters: 45 points. Long words with rare letters score fastest.

The clock

The clock drains the whole time, and the game ends when it runs out. Words of four letters or more add time: a four-letter word adds 4 seconds, five letters 10, six letters 18, seven letters 28. A three-letter word adds nothing. When the clock is already full, the time you would have gained pays out as points instead, 2 points a second.

Gates

Every ten words the board sinks through a gate into a new place, and from then on the clock drains faster. The surface is the gentlest. Below it lie six named places — the underroot, the echo vaults, the drowned archive, the nameless deep, the silence and the first word — and past those the gates are only numbered.

The preview strip

The row of small tiles above the board shows the next letter waiting in each column. When you play a word, its tiles drop away and the letters above fall into place, so the strip tells you what will arrive.

Cascades

If falling tiles line up into a word of four letters or more, read left to right along a row, that word scores by itself. It only counts if every letter in it is one you could have seen coming: a tile that fell, or a letter from the preview strip. A cascade that sets off another builds a chain, and each link raises the multiplier, up to ×6.

The daily, free play and the archive

The daily challenge is a 6×6 board, the same for everyone that day, with one attempt. A new one starts at midnight, your local time. Free play gives you a fresh board whenever you like, in three sizes: small 5×5, medium 6×6, and large 7×7, where words need four letters. The archive holds every past daily, one attempt each.

Special days

On holidays the board hides a dozen bonus words. Each one pays triple, in points and in time, in every mode — on that day only. Each language has its own holidays.

Tips

Long words count twice: they score more and they buy time.
A three-letter word adds no time. When the clock is low, go long.
Look at the strip before you trace. The word you take decides what falls next.
High-value letters are worth building a word around.