How to play Word Nibbles
the rules, the scoring, and the Qu tile
Tracing a word
Drag your finger across touching tiles to spell a word, then lift to submit. The trail follows your finger, and sliding back over the previous tile rubs a letter out.
TASTY, traced through five touching tiles. The diagonal step is fine: any of the eight neighbours will do.
Letters must touch the letter before them: sideways, up, down or diagonally. No tile can be used twice in one word.
What counts as a word
Any word in the game's dictionary counts, as long as it meets the round's minimum length. The host picks that minimum on the setup screen: three, four or five letters.
CAR, refused: the A and the R never touch. Every step of a trace has to be a neighbour.
The Qu tile
Q and U ride one tile together. It counts as two letters for scoring but takes one step to trace, so QUEEN is a four-tile word.
Scoring
A word scores one point, plus one more for every letter past the round's minimum. With three-letter words allowed:
In a party there is one twist: a word that nobody else found scores double, and the reveal turns it gold.
Hints, rotation and the pause
A candy hint tells you how long a word is and what it starts with, and lights up its first tile. Tap the bubble to reveal the whole word; you still have to trace it yourself.
🔄 rotates the board, which is a surprisingly good way to spot new words. ⏸ pauses the clock, and switching away from the tab pauses it automatically.
Board sizes
| 🐣 Mini 3×3 | a quick snack; small enough that the minimum drops to three letters |
| 🐱 Classic 4×4 | the right first game |
| 🐰 Big 5×5 | room for longer words |
| 🦄 Super 6×6 | for word hoarders with time on their hands |
After the round
The results screen shows your score, every word you found, and the best ones you missed. Tap any word for its story: the trace lit up on a small board, what it scored, your lifetime record with it, and what it actually means, looked up from Wiktionary.
Questions
Is Word Nibbles free?
Yes. There are no ads and no accounts either; open the page and play.
Can I play by myself?
Yes. Solo rounds run against the clock, or with no clock at all if you pick no rush.
Can I play with friends?
Yes: one of you hosts a party and the rest join with a code. Everyone races the same board on their own phone. There is a whole page on it: playing with friends.
Where do the definitions come from?
Wiktionary. Tap any word on the results screen to see what it means.