Puzzle

Word Board

by Paper Crane Collective

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Drag through a board of paper letters to spell words, and watch the rest tumble down.

Screenshots

About this game

A board full of paper letters. Drag your finger from letter to touching letter to spell a word, and it lifts off the board. The letters above drop down to fill the gaps, and new words appear where there weren't any.

Words don't have to run in straight lines: they snake round the board, turning any way you like, as long as each letter touches the last. Every word you take changes the words that are left, so the order matters. Clear the whole board for a bonus.

  • Snake a word through any touching letters, diagonals included
  • Longer words score more, and so do the awkward letters
  • A new daily board, the same for everyone
  • Share your score without giving the board away

Recent updates

All updates →
  • v1.1.0 Oct 17, 2026

    1.1.0

    • Recover from a blocked board with Undo before deciding to keep the score. Daily assistance still requires an explicit choice.
    • Continue directly into another practice board, a daily retry or the next learning board.
    • Add four optional, replayable learning boards covering diagonals, falling letters, planning and a small complete clear.
    • Add a short, skippable clear celebration after committing the result; reload preserves the result without granting progress twice.
    • Introduce two-stage hints: outline a starting tile, then reveal the word. Prefer a verified route to a clear; fallback hints favour familiar words that avoid isolating tiny groups and explicitly do not promise a clear.
    • Make recognised-word feedback explicit, improve supporting text and contrast, and place short phone-dialog decisions near the bottom.
    • Improve keyboard focus and navigation on sparse/diagonal boards, secondary-pointer handling and cancellation during rotation or resizing.
    • Reserve space for the arcade's right-edge menu handle in hosted phone layouts, including short-landscape hint controls.
    • Give Finish board a distinct sage background and olive border.
    • Show current and best daily streaks, today's status and seven paper stamps in the menu, with clear signed-out and unavailable states.
    • Adopt GameKit 0.8.0 scopes, presentation timing, sampled effects, surfaces and isolated previews. Pause reasons remain independent; samples retry and use a bounded voice pool.
    • Migrate sessions and profiles to separate v2 slots while preserving released saves and unknown future versions. Keep the published dictionary, 730 daily boards, scoring and 3:51 soundtrack unchanged.

    1.0.4

    • Balanced confirmation-dialog buttons: equal widths side by side, stacked at narrow phone widths.

    • Made diagonal swipes more forgiving: passing through a side tile's corner no longer immediately adds that letter.

    • Re-evaluate direction from each newly selected tile throughout the word, while keeping straight moves, deliberate turns and retracing available.

    • Read the final release position for active drags. Tap and keyboard selection retain their existing behaviour.

    1.0.3

    • Expanded accepted vocabulary from 113,947 to 201,393 words using current ESDB and ENABLE, preserving all previously accepted words.
    • Added familiar missing words and source-backed regular and irregular plurals; kept existing daily boards and hint seeds unchanged.
    • Added muted botanical tile colours by letter value; one-point tiles retain their cream colour.
    • Enlarged and darkened corner scores, with letter values included in accessible labels.
    • Replaced the music with Paper Garden, a new 3-minute-51-second acoustic loop. The original track exceeded the extension service input limit.

    1.0.2

    • Replaced the short background loop with Quiet Corners, a new 2-minute-21-second acoustic instrumental with felt piano, nylon guitar and soft marimba.
    • Kept the gentle paper-garden mood and separate sound/music controls.

    1.0.1

    First playable Word Board build.

    • Trace words through a 7×7 board of paper tiles, including diagonal turns.
    • Found words lift away; remaining letters fall straight down.
    • Score longer words and rare letters, with 500 bonus points for a clear board.
    • 730 verified clearable boards, daily challenges and unlimited practice.
    • Tap, drag and keyboard controls; undo and hints in assisted play.
    • Automatic local resume, synced preferences and daily best scores.
    • Spoiler-free score sharing, daily leaderboard and four achievements.
    • Original fal.ai soundtrack and paper-tile effects, with separate switches.
  • v1.0.4 Oct 15, 2026

    Word Board 1.0.4

    • Expanded the dictionary to 201,393 accepted words, including regular and irregular plurals.
    • Added gentle tile colours by letter value and larger, clearer corner scores; one-point tiles remain cream.
    • Added Paper Garden, a new 3-minute-51-second acoustic soundtrack.
    • Improved diagonal swipes throughout a word, preserving deliberate turns and backtracking.
    • Balanced confirmation-dialog buttons on desktop and phones.
    • Preserved existing daily boards and saved-game compatibility.
    • Restricted solution and near-win development commands to local development builds.
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