Stackdown

Stackdown comes from Puzzlist, the small studio behind Waffle and One Word Search. Each day there is one numbered stack, the same for every player.

The stack is a heap of overlapping letter tiles. Only tiles that are not covered can be picked. Tapping one moves it into the row of five slots below, which may expose tiles underneath. Fill all five slots with a valid word and those tiles are gone for good; an invalid word sends them back. The puzzle is built so that at each point there is only one possible word to find, so the challenge is spotting it among the exposed letters.

If you are stuck, you can swipe to reveal a hint, but your star score depends on how few hints you use. A timer records how long each word and the whole stack took; it is hidden by default and does not affect the stars.

Past stacks can be played from the archive in the menu, a statistics panel keeps your streak and total stars, and a result can be shared as a line of stars with your time. The game runs in the browser on a phone or a desktop with no sign-up; a banner ad sits below the hint bar.

It suits Waffle fans and anyone who likes anagram hunting with a bit of order-of-operations thinking.