How to Play Word Racer

Word Racer is a fast word-search game. You get four rounds, two minutes each, to find as many words as you can hidden in a grid of letters. The player with the highest total score after round four wins.

The basics

1. Start a game. Play a solo practice game on your own, or create a group game and share the link with friends so they can join.
2. Find words in the grid. Look for chains of neighboring letters that spell a word, type the word, and press Enter.
3. Score points. Every valid word adds to your score for the round. Longer words and words that use bonus tiles are worth a lot more.
4. Play all four rounds. Each round has a new grid with a new shape. Between rounds there's a short break where you can see everyone's scores and review the words that were found.

Forming words

Words must be at least 3 letters long. Each letter in a word has to touch the letter before it: up, down, left, right, or diagonally. You can't skip over a tile or jump to a letter somewhere else in the grid. As you type, the game highlights the tiles so you can see how your word connects.

You can't reuse a tile within the same word. Like Boggle and the original Yahoo! Games Word Racer, once a tile is part of your word you can't loop back and use it again. If the grid has two E tiles next to each other, a word with a double E is fine. A single E tile can't be used twice.

Words are checked against a dictionary of nearly 200,000 English words. Plurals and other word forms count as separate words, so MAT, MATS, MATTER and MATTERS are four different finds. Each word can only score once per round for you. Typing it again doesn't earn more points.

Scoring

Every word is scored the same way:

• 10 points just for finding a word, plus
• 10 points for every letter in the word.

So a 3-letter word like BUS is worth 10 + 30 = 40 points.

Long-word bonus

Words of 7 letters or more earn an extra bonus that grows with every letter past the sixth: +30 for the 7th letter, +60 for the 8th, +90 for the 9th, and so on.

A single 9-letter word like POMPOUSLY is worth as much as seven 3-letter words, before any multipliers.

Bonus tiles: double and triple

Some rounds have colored bonus tiles. If your word uses one, the entire word's score is multiplied:

• Blue tiles double the word score (2×).
• Red tiles triple the word score (3×).

Multipliers stack. A word that runs through two blue tiles is worth 4×, and one that uses a blue and a red tile is worth 6×. The long-word bonus is added before the multiplier, so long words on bonus tiles are where the really big scores come from. MATTERS is normally worth 110 points. If one of its letters sat on a red tile it would be worth 330.

If the same word can be traced along more than one path, you automatically get the highest-scoring path.

The four rounds

Every game is exactly four rounds, and every round lasts two minutes. Each round has its own grid shape, and the later grids are bigger with more bonus tiles.

Round 1: the classic square

A 4×4 grid of letters with no bonus tiles. A good warm-up.

Round 2: the diamond

A rounded diamond shape with two double-score tiles at the top and bottom points.

Round 3: the double square

A double-square grid with triple-score tiles on opposite ends.

Round 4: the big ring

The largest grid, with a hole in the middle and two double and two triple tiles on opposite corners. The hole breaks up a lot of straight-line paths, so diagonal connections matter more here than anywhere else.

Reading the scoreboard

During a round, your found words and points for that round are listed next to the grid. The player scores show everyone's running total across all rounds. After each round there's a 10-second break before the next grid appears. You can use it to review every word that was found, including words nobody spotted.

Solo and multiplayer

Solo practice uses the same rules and grids, so it's the best way to learn the shapes and warm up. Group games let you race friends in real time. Every player sees the same grid, and each player scores their own words. If you and a friend both find MATTERS, you both get the points. Group games can be public, so anyone can join from the lobby, or private, so only people with your link can join.

Want to get better? Read the Word Racer strategy guide, or check the FAQ if something isn't working the way you expect.