Cell Tower
Split a stack of letters into hidden words that cover the whole grid.
Every day: One numbered grid of letters a day, the same for every player, that splits into exactly one set of four-to-eight-letter words. New puzzle: Midnight UTC; the game counts puzzles in UTC days from 6 May 2022.
Cell Tower is a daily word puzzle by Andrew Taylor. A tall grid of letters hides a set of English words of four to eight letters, and you divide the grid into connected regions so that each spells one of them. There is only one way to cover every cell.
About Cell Tower
Cell Tower is one of the browser puzzles Andrew Taylor publishes on his site, andrewt.net, where it carries a copyright from 2022. Each day brings a new numbered puzzle, counted from May 2022, and everyone gets the same grid.
The grid looks like a random stack of letters. Your job is to cut it into regions, each a connected group of cells that spells a word of four to eight letters when you read it left to right and top to bottom. That reading order matters: a region might read PUZZLE or PUZZLING but never a word whose letters sit in the wrong order. Every letter belongs to a word, and the grid has a single solution.
You tap cells to build a region and accept it as a word. Words that are part of the solution count as right; ones that are valid but wrong count against you until you remove them. When you finish, the game draws your solve as a grid of arrows: right for each correct word, up for each wrong one, so a perfect game is a straight line. A hint is on offer if you stall, though using one breaks a streak, and older puzzles can be played from a menu.
It suits players who like word searches but want a logic puzzle underneath: finding one word is easy, finding the set that leaves no letter stranded is the puzzle.
How to play Cell Tower
- Open Cell Tower and look over the day's stack of letters.
- Tap connected cells to select a region that reads as a four-to-eight-letter word, left to right and top to bottom.
- Press the button at the bottom to accept the word.
- If a word turns out wrong, tap its region to remove it.
- Keep going until every cell belongs to a word, then share your arrow grid.
Tips
- Start at the corners and edges, where the letters have fewer ways to join a word.
- Remember the reading order: a region's letters are read row by row, so a word cannot bend back on itself.
- A letter that no nearby word can use tells you the region next to it is wrong.
- Ignore the hint offer if you care about your streak; hints keep the puzzle out of your record.
Questions
When does a new Cell Tower puzzle appear?
At midnight UTC. The game counts its puzzles in UTC days from 6 May 2022.
How long are the words?
Each region must spell an English word of four to eight letters.
Is there more than one solution?
No. The instructions say there is only one way to cover the whole grid in words.
Can I play older puzzles?
Yes. The menu lets you pick an earlier puzzle by number.
What does the result grid mean?
Each correct word moves you right and each wrong one moves you up, so a perfect game is one straight row of arrows.
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