Word Steps (Clue Morning)

About Word Steps (Clue Morning)

Word Steps is one of the seven short daily games on Clue Morning, a small browser site whose set also includes a hidden-word grid, a four-group sort, a letter trail, a three-clue link, the rarity trivia game Deep Cut and the push-your-luck quiz Last Call. Each of the seven has its own page, and together they make up the site's Morning Run.

The puzzle is a plain word ladder. The start word and the target word, both four letters, sit at the top of the screen, for example CAMP and LOSE. You type the next word and press Climb. It must differ from the word before it by exactly one letter and be in the game's dictionary, and you cannot use a word twice in the same path. A pixel-art climber moves up a rooftop scene with each accepted step.

You have eight moves, and each day's ladder also has a par. Reaching the target at or under par earns 1,000 points; each move over par costs 100, down to 400. Undo takes back your last step if a branch goes nowhere. If you use all eight moves without arriving, the game shows a path that works and scores the ladder as zero.

The ladder changes at midnight Pacific time, and everyone plays the same one that day. The daily set is free in the browser with no account; a paid Unlimited option adds extra ladders from a reserve library that do not touch the daily score, streak or leaderboard. Your Word Steps score feeds the day's seven-game total on the site's leaderboard.

How to play Word Steps (Clue Morning)

1. Open Word Steps on Clue Morning; the day's start word, target word, par and move count appear at the top.
2. Type a four-letter word that changes exactly one letter of the current word and press Climb.
3. Keep stepping, one letter per move, with every word real and none repeated.
4. Reach the target within eight moves; at or under par scores 1,000 points, and Undo takes back a step that leads nowhere.

Tips

• Before typing, mark which letter positions differ between the start and target words; with four positions, a path at par often changes each one once.
• If no real word fits the next obvious change, alter a letter that already matches the target, then change it back later.
• When you stall, try changing the vowel: in four-letter words a new vowel often opens more real words than a new consonant.
• Each move over par costs 100 points, so use Undo to back out of a dead end rather than spending moves going round it.

Questions