How to play Quad Word

Quad Word is four five-letter word puzzles played at the same time. Each of the four boards hides its own word, and you have nine guesses to find all four.

One guess goes everywhere

This is the rule that makes the game. Whatever word you type is played on every board that is still unsolved, and each board scores it against its own answer.

Green means the letter is in that board's word in exactly that position. Amber means the letter is in the word but somewhere else. Grey means it is not in that word at all. Because the four answers are different, the same guess usually comes back in four different colourings, and a letter that is grey on one board can be green on the next.

Once a board is solved it turns green and stops receiving guesses, so the later rows of a solved board stay empty. The game ends when all four are solved, which is a win, or when the ninth guess is used up with a board still open.

Reading the keyboard

With four boards the keyboard has more to say than usual, so each letter key is split into four quarters laid out the same way as the boards: top-left quarter for the top-left board, and so on. A quarter takes the colour that letter has earned on that board. When a board is solved its quarters go back to plain, so the colours always describe the boards still in play. A key that is grey on every open board sinks into the keyboard, which is the quickest way to see which letters are completely dead.

Repeated letters

Repeated letters follow the usual rule. If a board's answer has one E and your guess has two, only one of your Es is coloured and the other comes back grey. That grey means there is no second E, not that there is no E.

How to spend nine guesses

Nine guesses for four words is roughly two each with one spare, so the opening matters more here than in a single-word game.

The strongest start is two or three words with no letters in common that between them cover the most common letters, such as an opener built from S, T, A, R and E followed by one from O, I, L, N and C. Those probes are not trying to solve anything. They are filling all four boards with information at once.

After that, look for the board closest to solved and finish it. A guess that solves one board is still a probe on the other three, so pick the candidate that also tests letters the other boards need. Leave the most open board until last, when the eliminated letters have done the most work for you.

The common way to lose is spending guesses one board at a time. If you are three guesses from the end with two boards open, every guess has to be a real candidate for one of them.

The daily and practice

There is one daily puzzle, the same four words for everybody, with a new one at midnight in your own time zone. Win on consecutive days to build a streak; the statistics show how many guesses your wins usually take. The share text shows which guess solved each board, laid out like the boards, with a red square for a board you missed and no letters at all, so it spoils nothing.

Practice mode deals new sets of four whenever you like. Practice games never touch your streak, and sharing a practice result sends a link that opens the very same four words for your friend.