🐢 Word Duel
A friendly word hunt on a living reef. Thirty-six letter pearls, one real dictionary, and Tully the turtle cheering you on — drag across the pearls to spell words, beat the clock, hit today's target, or out-spell a rival on the very same reef.
Score 0
Best 0
⏱ 3:00
Words 0
How to play
- Drag to spell: press a pearl and drag across neighbours — any direction, diagonals too — then let go to play the word. Words need 3+ letters, and a pearl can be used once per word. Drag back over the last pearl to undo a step. The Q pearl is always “Qu” and counts as two letters.
- Scoring: by length — 3–4 letters = 1, 5 = 2, 6 = 3, 7 = 5, 8+ = 11 — plus a rarity bonus: scarce letters add their own points (B C F H M P V W Y = +1 each · K = +2 · J X Q Z = +3 each). Found words pop into bubbles and fresh pearls drift down; the reef always keeps at least 9 vowel pearls in play.
- The dictionary is the law: a word counts only if it is in the reef dictionary — a built-in list of 23,798 common English words of 3–9 letters. Plurals and tenses count only as listed. If it isn't in the dictionary, it isn't a word here — no arguments with the turtle.
- ⏱ Timed Dive: 3 minutes, score as high as you can.
- 🎯 Daily Depth: no clock. Today's board and target score are set by the date — the same all day for everyone. Reach the target to clear today's depth.
- ⚔️ Duel: a 2-minute head-to-head on the same reef against a named rival, from Shelly the Crab up to Grandpa Turtle. Your rival really reads this board: every word they score is a genuine dictionary word hiding in these pearls, found at their pace. First to find a word claims it — if your rival claims REEF first, it's theirs. Beat a rival to unlock the next.
- Hints: stuck for 20 seconds and one hiding word's first pearl starts to glimmer — or tap 💡 Hint any time. The hint always comes from a real word on this board.
- Honest clock: pause, or switch tabs, and the timer stops. It only runs while you can see the reef.
🦀
the DabblerShelly · 0 pts
The duel begins…
Drag across the pearls to spell a word!
Pick a mode to dive in.
🧺 Your catchBest word: —
Words you find will land here.