Types of Word Games and What They're Called

Short answer: almost every word game belongs to one of eight families — word search, letter-grid hunts, anagrams, crossword-style tiles, guess-the-word, grouping, ladders and fill-ins. Each asks for a different skill, and each goes by several names, some of which change between British and American English.

Our guide to picking a free word game for iPhone has a quick five-type overview. This article goes further: what each family is called, how it actually plays, what it rewards, and where our own game, Wordfly, fits.

The families at a glance

1. Word search

Also called: wordsearch (common in British English), word search or word find (American), find-a-word, word seek.

A puzzle-book staple: a block of letters and a list of words hidden in it, usually in straight lines — across, down, diagonal, sometimes backwards. You know what you are looking for; the game is in finding where. It rewards pattern-scanning more than vocabulary, which is why it suits people who want to relax rather than be tested.

In Wordfly: Word Drop is a close cousin. Each of its 400 levels gives you a list of words to find in a stack of letter bubbles, so you know the targets, but the letters do not sit in neat rows. Our next game, Inkwell, is a calm word search of its own and is coming soon.

2. Letter-grid hunts

Also called: word grid, word hunt, letter grid, or a Boggle-style game, after the board game with a shaken tray of letter dice.

Here there is no list. You get a small grid — often 4×4 — and find any word you can by joining letters that touch, usually including diagonals, without using a square twice. A clock is common. It rewards vocabulary and speed, and above all the habit of extending a short word into a long one.

In Wordfly: Letter Grid — a 4×4 board, 90 seconds, words of three letters or more. Our letter grid strategy guide explains how scoring works and how to find more words.

3. Anagram games

Also called: anagrams, word wheel (a newspaper favourite in Britain), jumble or word scramble (common American names), word connect.

A fixed set of letters, and your job is to rearrange them: into one target word, or into as many words as possible. Word wheels put one letter in the middle that every word must use. The difference from a letter grid is that position does not matter — any letter can follow any other — so it is purely about what words the letters can make.

In Wordfly: there is no anagram mode. If you enjoy these, the letter grid is the nearest relative.

4. Crossword-style tile games

Also called: tile game, word builder, crossword builder, or a Scrabble-style game.

You place letter tiles on a board so that words cross, the way they do in a crossword, and letter values and board squares decide the score. It is the most spatial family: where a word goes matters as much as what it is, which is why these games feel closest to a board game.

In Wordfly: Tile Board, the campaign — 400 levels in 40 chapters. Each level has a target score to reach in a limited number of turns, up to three stars, and three swaps per level. The mode-by-mode guide walks through a level.

5. Guess the word

Also called: Wordle-style game, five-letter word game, word guessing game; hangman is the classic pen-and-paper ancestor.

A hidden word and a limited number of guesses, with feedback after each one about which letters are right. It is deduction more than vocabulary: a good guess is one that rules out the most. Rounds are short, which makes this the natural format for a daily puzzle.

In Wordfly: none. For where to play this family, see our map of daily word games.

6. Word grouping

Also called: Connections-style game, grouping puzzle, categories game. British viewers will know the idea as the connecting wall from the quiz show Only Connect.

A set of words hides several groups that share something — a meaning, a sound, a missing word. The skill is lateral thinking: the obvious group is often a trap, because one of its words belongs somewhere else.

In Wordfly: Groups — 16 words, 4 groups of 4, up to 4 mistakes — including a daily Groups puzzle drawn from a pack bundled with the app, which repeats. Our Groups strategy guide covers how to spot the trap.

7. Word ladders

Also called: word ladder, doublets (Lewis Carroll's name for it in the 1870s), word golf, word chain.

Turn one word into another by changing one letter at a time, with a real word at every rung: COLD, CORD, CARD, WARD, WARM. It rewards a feel for how words sit next to each other, and it works equally well on paper and on a phone.

In Wordfly: none.

8. Fill-ins and coded grids

Also called: fill-in or fill-it-in in American puzzle books, kriss kross in British ones; the coded version, where each number stands for a letter, is a codeword in Britain.

A crossword grid with no clues. In a fill-in you get a list of words sorted by length and have to fit them in; in a codeword you get a few letters and crack the rest. Both are about logic and elimination more than knowledge, which is why they appeal to people who find clued crosswords frustrating.

In Wordfly: none.

Which family suits you?

• You want to switch off: word search.
• You want to be quick: a letter-grid hunt.
• You like deduction: guess the word, or a codeword.
• You like a trick: word grouping.
• You like planning: crossword-style tiles.

Whatever the family, if you often play without a signal, check the game keeps its puzzles on the phone. Our note on offline word games shows how to test that before a flight.

Wordfly: Daily Word Puzzles

Four families in one app: Groups, Letter Grid, Tile Board and Word Drop. Free on the App Store, no account, plays offline.

Learn more

Frequently asked

More reading: daily word games beyond Wordle · all four Wordfly modes explained · how to pick a free word game.