What is subwords?
subwords is morning coffee games' daily word-hunting puzzle. A 5×5 board contains many possible answers; you collect points from the words you find rather than trying to identify one hidden solution. The board's five-star ladder gives the session a concrete finish line.
The familiar tracing mechanic gains a scoring twist from letter values and word multipliers. A useful route through the right tiles can matter more than finding another easy three-letter word.
Paths and points
Each letter must touch the previous tile horizontally, vertically, or diagonally. A word cannot reuse a tile, even if its path crosses itself, and it must contain at least three letters. Proper nouns, abbreviations, and words outside the game's list do not count.
Add the letter values, then multiply that total by every multiplier used. Unnumbered tiles are worth one point. If a word has several possible routes, the game awards its highest-scoring route regardless of which valid route you traced. Rejected words do not deduct points.
How to play
- Scan the grid, especially the letters around the strongest multiplier tiles.
- Drag a connected word and release to submit it, or tap its letters and tap the final tile again.
- Alternatively, type the word and press Enter; the board previews its best route.
- Review the score and look for another word, extension, or separate plural that the board supports.
- Keep building your total until you reach the fifth star's target.
An illustrative scoring example
Suppose a valid three-letter path has tile values 2, 1, and 1 and crosses a 3× tile. Its score is (2 + 1 + 1) × 3 = 12. Crossing both a 2× and a 3× multiplier makes the multiplier 6×, not 5×.
Use that arithmetic to choose where to search next. The star thresholds depend on the current board, so a score that finished yesterday's puzzle may not finish today's.