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Perimeter: Word Puzzle
Twelve letters sit on the four sides of a square. Your job is to use every one of them, in as few words as you can. Tap letters to spell a word, and two rules shape every move: consecutive letters must come from different sides, so each word zigzags across the square, and every new word has to begin with the letter the last one ended on. BEAM, then MUSICIANS, then STANDING — three words, all twelve letters covered, puzzle done.
Par is the real game
Every puzzle has a par: the fewest words it can be solved in. Covering all twelve letters is the first goal; doing it in par is the one that counts, and it usually means finding one long word that sweeps across most of the square. When the day rolls over you can open yesterday's puzzle and see a par solution, which is where you find out what you missed.
The board pushes back in useful ways. Instant feedback tells you why a word was refused — two letters from the same side, the wrong starting letter, or a word that is not in the list — so a rejected attempt teaches you something instead of just costing time. Your path is drawn across the square as you go, which makes it easy to see which letters are still untouched.
Daily, practice and yesterday
- Daily — one puzzle a day, the same for everyone. Progress saves as you go, so you can put it down and come back to it any time before midnight. Solve it and your streak grows.
- Practice — endless puzzles whenever you want them, filtered by par: a quick two-word win, or a par-four board that takes real thought.
- Yesterday — once the day rolls over, a par solution for the previous daily, along with how many valid words that board allowed.
The stats screen keeps your current and best streak, puzzles solved, and how often you finish at par or better, with a chart of your results against par. There is no timer and there are no lives.
Built so there is never one way through
All 500 puzzles were verified solvable in two to four words before they shipped, so par is always a real number rather than a hopeful one. The dictionary holds more than 22,000 words, built from ENABLE, a public-domain word list, and every board has at least a hundred valid words on it — often several hundred.
That second number matters more than it looks. With only a handful of legal words, a puzzle turns into a hunt for the one answer the setter had in mind. With hundreds, there are many routes to every finish, and the only question is how short yours can be.
Finding shorter routes
- Look for the long word first. A word of eight or nine letters that touches all four sides does most of the work on its own.
- Plan the hand-off. The next word starts on the last letter, so end on a letter that begins plenty of words.
- Count what is left. After each word, check which letters are still untouched and choose an ending that leads toward them.
- Experiment freely. Delete and Restart cost nothing, and with no clock running there is no reason not to try a word and back out.
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