Square Dance

About Square Dance

Square Dance is one of the daily word games Lex Friedman makes for Lex.Games, and a cousin of his By A Vowel. Each numbered puzzle gives you three words to build: one of five letters, one of six and one of seven. For each you get the letters already placed in squares, minus one, and you take the missing letter from a row of tiles from A to Z.

Every tile has a points value, a little like Scrabble, and the values go up for the longer words: double on the six letter word and triple on the seven. Common letters are cheap and S is worth nothing, so the challenge is to find a valid word that uses the most valuable letter you can manage. Valid words turn green and invalid ones red.

Your final score is the sum of your tiles, multiplied by how fast you finish: five times for a solve within a minute, four times within two, down to no bonus after four minutes. Each day's puzzle has its own leaderboard, past puzzles are in the archive, and Square Dance Rando serves a fresh unscored puzzle on every refresh. If you are stuck there is a give up button that shows the words.

The daily puzzle is free on the web and in the Lex.Games app for iPhone and iPad; an upgrade adds the PRO games on the site. It suits players who like short word puzzles with a score to chase rather than a single right answer.

How to play Square Dance

1. Open lex.games/squaredance and look at the first word: its letters sit in squares with one letter missing.
2. Click letters to spell a five letter word, taking exactly one letter from the scored tiles above.
3. When the word is valid it turns green; an invalid word turns red, so clear it and try again.
4. Do the same for the six letter and seven letter words, where tile values are doubled and tripled.
5. Finish all three as fast as you can for a time multiplier of up to five times, then copy your score or check the leaderboard.

Tips

• Look for a word that can take J, Q, X or Z: they are worth 8 points on the first word and much more on the longer ones.
• Spend more thought on the seven letter word; its tiles count three times.
• Do not chase points so long that you lose the time bonus: a solve in under a minute multiplies everything by five.
• Use Shuffle letters when you are stuck; seeing the letters in a new order often shows the word.

Questions