Wordistance

Wordistance is a browser word game built on edit distance, known in computing as the Levenshtein distance. There is one numbered mystery word per day, the same for every player, and a new one arrives at midnight Pacific Time. The answers are ordinary English words of varying length: recent days ran from SUBMIT to INFECTION.

You type any word of three letters or more and press Guess. The game adds a row with the attempt number, the word and its distance: the smallest number of steps that turns your guess into the answer, where a step is inserting a letter, deleting a letter or replacing one letter with another. PART is one step from PARTY, ART and PORT, and three steps from CARROT. Your latest guess shows above the line, with the earlier ones listed below it.

With hints on, each guess also gets a temperature word and a line that breaks the number down, such as "Just remove 1 letter and replace 4 others". That tells you whether the answer is longer or shorter than your guess. Hints can be switched off before the first guess for a harder game; once you start, the setting locks for the day.

There is no limit on guesses, so the game is about how few you need rather than whether you finish. You can give up to see the word, and a stats panel keeps games won, your best and worst wins and your current and longest streak. A share button copies your result, and a list of previous solutions shows earlier answers by number and date, though past days cannot be replayed.

It suits players who like deduction games such as Mastermind or bulls and cows more than vocabulary tests: the trick is choosing guesses that tell you about length and letters, like CAT then CUT to test one letter. The site is plain, has no ads and needs no account.