Shiftle

About Shiftle

Shiftle is a free browser word game made by Toir. It keeps Wordle's grid and colour feedback but changes what counts as a word: each guess must be a real five-letter word with exactly one letter moved one, two or three places up or down the alphabet, so SNAKE can become SNANE. Real words are not allowed as guesses, and letters cannot wrap from Z back to A.

The answers follow the same rule, which makes the puzzle about two layers at once: finding the letters and working out which real word sits underneath. The daily puzzles are numbered from 1 November 2022 and change at midnight UTC, the same for every player.

Swap Shiftle is a separate daily mode with its own answer. It adds one extra move per row: you may swap a pair of tiles to test letter positions. There is also an unlimited mode for practice, plus statistics, a high-contrast option and a choice of keyboard layouts.

It suits Wordle players who have mastered the original and want a stranger, more logical variant.

How to play Shiftle

1. Open the daily Shiftle puzzle.
2. Think of a real five-letter word and shift one of its letters one to three places in the alphabet.
3. Type that shifted word as your guess and press enter.
4. Read the colours: green for the right letter in the right spot, yellow for a letter elsewhere in the answer.
5. Narrow down the answer in up to seven guesses, then try Swap Shiftle.

Tips

• Shift a letter into a rare one like J, Q or X to test it cheaply while keeping common letters.
• Remember the answer is itself a shifted word, so look for a real word one letter away from your clues.
• In Swap Shiftle, use the swap to check where a yellow letter belongs.

Questions