SnackWords

A free daily word game

SnackWords gives you one hidden five-letter word a day and six attempts to find it. Every player gets the same word, because the answer is worked out from the date itself rather than fetched from a server — which also means the game keeps working with no connection.

There are no ads, no account, no email capture and no timer pressuring you. Your streak lives on your own device and nothing is uploaded. If you want more than one puzzle a day, the daily hub has sixteen more, or there are 39 free games in the arcade.

Getting the word in fewer guesses

A good opening word is one that tests five common letters at once rather than one that looks likely to be right — the first guess is worth more as information than as an attempt. Openers built from common vowels and consonants tend to leave you with far fewer candidates than a lucky-looking guess that repeats a letter.

Grey letters are as useful as green ones: each one removes a slice of the remaining words, so a second guess that shares no letters with the first often narrows things faster than nudging one letter around. Watch for the same letter appearing twice, which is what catches most people out on the fifth and sixth tries.

How the colours work

After each guess every letter is coloured: green means that letter is in the word and in exactly that position, gold means the letter is in the word but somewhere else, and grey means it isn't in the word at all. Repeated letters are counted properly — if the answer has one E and you guess two, only one of yours will light up.

Turn on hard mode if you want the game to insist that every hint you've uncovered is used in your following guesses.