SpellTower

About SpellTower

SpellTower first came out in 2011, and Zach Gage rebuilt it in 2020 with bonus tiles, a new Search mode and eleven modes in all. You make words by tracing adjacent letters in a grid; the letters you use disappear, the tiles above fall, and in several modes new rows push up from the bottom. If any column reaches the top, the game ends.

The daily modes exist because, as Gage explained, players kept asking what counted as a good score in a random game. In Daily Tower everyone plays the exact same set of tiles on a given day, so leaderboards become a fair race. Daily Search uses the Search format, where only your best word built around a starred letter counts, with a new board each day.

The app is free with ads, and a single purchase unlocks the full set of modes; an Apple Arcade edition, SpellTower+, carries the same modes. Words with long letters and bonus tiles score more, and Game Center keeps the leaderboards. The same game also appears on Puzzmo as a daily browser puzzle.

How to play SpellTower

1. Open Daily Tower to get the day's shared set of tiles.
2. Trace a word through neighbouring letters and lift your finger to play it.
3. Watch the tiles above drop into the gaps you leave.
4. Keep making words and use bonus tiles to raise your score before the tower fills.
5. Try Daily Search too, then compare your scores on the leaderboards.

Tips

• Long words score far more than several short ones; look for five letters or more.
• Clear the tallest columns first so the tower does not top out.
• Save rare letters such as Q and Z for a word that uses a bonus tile.

Questions