Letter Hive

About this game

Letter Hive is the once-a-day letter puzzle: seven letters sit in a honeycomb, one of them in the middle, and your job is to find every word hiding in them. A word counts if it runs to at least four letters, uses the centre letter, and uses only the seven on the board — and you may reuse any letter as often as you like, so a single hive can hold forty or fifty answers. Four-letter words are worth a point each and longer words score a point per letter, so length pays. The prize is the pangram: a word that uses all seven letters at once, worth its length plus a seven-point bonus. Every hive is built to contain at least one, and the generator proves it before the puzzle ever ships. Your score climbs a rank ladder that runs from Beginner through Solid, Strong, Great and Expert to Genius, with the bar always showing exactly how many points stand between you and the next rung — so there is a reason to look for one more word rather than stopping. Tap the cells or just type on your keyboard; Enter submits, Backspace deletes, and Shuffle rearranges the six outer letters when the hive stops giving up its secrets. There is one puzzle per day and it is the same seven letters for everyone, so it takes five minutes or fifty and it is worth coming back for. Play on consecutive days to build a streak, and share a spoiler-free result showing how far up the ladder you climbed without naming a single word. Works with a mouse, a finger or a keyboard, on any screen, with nothing to install.

Controls

Tap a hexagon to add its letter, or type on your keyboard.

Keyboard

• Enter submits the word, Backspace deletes a letter, Escape clears the whole entry.
• Every control is reachable with Tab.

Shuffle

• Shuffle rearranges the six outer letters; the centre letter never moves.

How to play

Seven letters are laid out as a honeycomb with one letter in the centre. Build words of four letters or more, using only those seven letters and always including the centre one. Letters can be reused as many times as you need, so short words and long ones both come out of the same board.

Scoring

• A four-letter word scores one point; anything longer scores a point for every letter.
• A pangram — a word that uses all seven letters — scores its length plus a bonus of seven, and every hive contains at least one.
• Your total climbs a rank ladder from Beginner to Genius at the top, and the progress bar shows how many points you still need for the next rank.

The daily hive

• Stuck? Shuffle the outer letters to see the hive differently, and remember that plurals ending in S never appear, because no hive contains an S.
• There is one shared puzzle per day: play on consecutive days to build a streak, and share your spoiler-free ladder result. A new hive unlocks at midnight.

Read the full Letter Hive rules and strategy →