Connect letters game

Search for a game where you connect letters and you mostly get the Boggle shape. A 4 by 4 grid. Drag through touching tiles, diagonals included, to spell a word. Score it. Find another. Usually there is a timer, and the goal is to find more words than anyone else found.

Onword uses the same drag and a different goal. There is a marked start cell. You draw one continuous trail through neighboring letters without reusing a cell, and the trail spells a chain of words where each one connects in meaning to the next. There is no timer, no score, and no list to exhaust. When the trail is complete, the board is done.

In a score attack you skim. Short words first, then hunt for the long one, and the clock decides when you stop. It is a good warm-up and a good race.

In Onword you read the clue, guess the chain, and then look for a route that spells it. If the theme is two common pets, you are looking for CAT and DOG, and the puzzle is finding the one path that spells both in order. It is slower and quieter. You finish because you solved it, not because time ran out.

Onword is free in the browser. Onword Daily is free on the App Store for iPhone and iPad, with no subscription. Android is not out yet. The word path puzzle rules and tips page walks the tutorial board step by step, and the games like Strands guide has a table that puts Onword next to the score-attack grids and the NYT puzzles.