A turn-based word game
Each word begins where the last one ended.
- LAMP
- PEACH
- HONEY
- YARN
Two to four players, seven rounds each. Play a real word, hand the next player its final letter, and watch the alphabet close in around you.
Free, no account, nothing to install. Works on a phone.
The part that makes it hard
Letters burn out.
Every time a word ends on a letter, that letter gets one step closer to being spent. Once it is gone, no word may ever end there again — so the easy landings disappear first, and the endgame is a scramble for whatever is left.
- A
- B
- C
- D
- E
- F
- G
- H
- I
- L
- N
- O
- R
- S
- T
- U
In a two-player game a letter burns after a single use. With three or four players it takes two. That one number is the difference between a friendly warm-up and a knife fight over the letter Y.
How a turn works
Three things happen, in order.
-
You are handed a letter
Whatever the last player's word ended on. That is the letter your word has to start with — no choice in the matter.
-
You play a real word
Two letters or more, checked against a dictionary. It cannot repeat a word already in the chain, and it cannot end on a letter that has burned out. Stuck? Every player gets one pass per game.
-
It scores, and the letter burns
Points land immediately with a full breakdown, your ending letter takes a hit, and the next player inherits it. Highest total after seven rounds wins.
Scoring
Long, rare and unrepeated.
Every word is scored on five things at once, and the game shows you the arithmetic each time so you can see where the points actually came from.
| What you get points for | How much |
|---|---|
| Letter values | 1–10 each — common letters score 1, Q and Z score 10 |
| Length | +3 for every letter past the fourth |
| Rare letters | +5 for each J, Q, X, Z or K, on top of their face value |
| No repeated letters | +5 when every letter in the word is different |
| Streak | +2 × your run of first-try words — one rejected guess resets it |
Two ways to play
Same room, or same passcode.
On one device
Pass the phone around. No setup, no connection, no accounts — enter names and start. This is the mode that works on a train.
In an online lobby
One player opens a lobby and reads out a four-digit code. Everyone plays from their own device, with live turns and a chat channel that clears itself as you go. Winners land on the leaderboard.
Installed as an app
Add LetterConnect to your home screen and it opens full-screen and launches offline. Nothing to download from a store.
Questions
Before you start.
Do I need an account to play?
No. Pass-and-play on one device needs nothing at all. For an online game, one player starts a lobby and shares the four-digit passcode — that is the only thing anyone has to enter.
How many people do I need?
Between two and four. There is no solo mode: the chain only gets interesting once someone else is deciding which letters to leave you.
Is there a time limit on a turn?
No, and that is deliberate. There is no clock anywhere in the game. Take as long as you want to find a word — the pressure comes from the letters running out, not from a timer.
Which words are allowed?
Any real English word of two letters or more, checked against a dictionary as you play. It has to start with the required letter, it cannot end on a letter that has already burned out, and no word can be played twice in the same game.
Does it work offline?
Yes. LetterConnect installs as an app and pass-and-play works with no connection at all. Online lobbies need one, since the other players' moves have to reach you somehow.
How long does a game take?
Seven rounds each, so a two-player game is fourteen turns and a four-player game is twenty-eight. With no turn timer it is up to your group, but most games land somewhere between ten and twenty minutes.
Someone has to go first.
We pick the opening word and choose who starts. You handle the rest.
Play LetterConnect