Word Trail

About Word Trail

Word Trail, by Kilsom on itch.io, is a word search played by dragging across letters. Each puzzle shows a grid on the left and the words to find on the right; mark a word and its letters light up and it is struck off the list. Score comes from the letters in each word, with a bonus for finishing the grid.

The Daily Challenge is built from the date. One seeded sequence picks the day's difficulty, the grid size, how many words to use, which words they are and where they go, so everyone who opens the same date gets the same puzzle. Easy days use a small grid with words that only read left to right and top to bottom; Normal adds backwards and upwards words; Hard days have grids up to sixteen letters across and words running in all eight directions, diagonals included. The daily words come from their own mixed list of places and things, such as voyage, glacier or lantern, separate from the themed levels.

Every grid also hides five bonus words that are not listed. Finding one scores more per letter than a listed word. A hint lights up a listed word's first letter but halves that word's points.

The daily screen is a calendar of the month marked with each day's difficulty, and you can go back to any earlier day of the current month that you missed. Statistics track how many dailies you have played and completed and your current and best daily streak. Outside the daily you can play 26 themed levels, from animals and space to mythology and farm life, at three difficulties, or race through as many boards as you can in a ten-minute Word Rush.

How to play Word Trail

1. Open the itch.io page, press Run game and choose Daily Challenge.
2. Pick today's date on the calendar; its letter shows whether it is Easy, Normal or Hard.
3. Drag across the letters of a listed word to mark it; on Hard days words can run backwards and diagonally.
4. Look out for unlisted bonus words in the grid for extra points.
5. Use a hint if stuck, which shows a word's first letter at half the points, and finish the list to complete the day.

Screenshots

Tips

• Search for the longest listed word first: it has the fewest places it can fit.
• Bonus words are three-letter words such as cat, owl or key, so scan for short words once the list is done.
• On Hard days check the diagonals early, since that is where words hide that a row-by-row scan misses.
• Missed a day? The calendar keeps every day of the current month open to play.

Questions