Squaredle gives you a grid of letters each day and asks you to find every word hidden in it, chaining touching letters in any direction, diagonals included. Words need at least four letters, each tile can be used once per word, and the goal is to clear the full required list.
Our Wednesday board: 47 words on an odd-shaped grid
We played the 28 October 2026 puzzle, logged out, on a computer keyboard. It was not a neat square: 19 tiles in a staggered 5x5 shape, rated two and a half stars, with 47 required words and 41 bonus words. The puzzle was credited to a creator called Pentagonal, so daily boards are not always built by the same hand.
Typing works as well as swiping. Type the letters, press Enter to submit, Backspace to delete and Esc to cancel, which the game spells out if you skip the tutorial. The word list groups missing words by length ("4 letters: +33 words left") without showing them, and it told us at the start that this board hid one 13-letter and one 10-letter word.
We reached 28 of 47 before stopping. The four-letter words came in bursts; the one-of-a-kind long words took the most staring, and finding the 13-letter word was worth +68 points on its own.
Stars on the progress bar unlock the real hints
The bar under the word count fills as you score, and longer words fill it faster. The in-game help explains the three stars:
- First star: each tile shows how many remaining words start on it. On our board this appeared right after the long word, and one tile went grey because no words were left that used it.
- Second star: tiles also show how many remaining words use them at all. This unlocked for us at 28 words, and it turned guessing into a search: a tile marked "4 start / 13 used" is where the remaining words live.
- Third star: hints in the word list, such as sorting missing words alphabetically or showing their first letters.
That made the biggest difference to our play. Chasing one long word early pays twice, in points and in unlocking the tile counts sooner. If you stall, the help says the word-list hints also open at 3pm US Pacific time.
Bonus words: odd guesses are free
Archaic, obscure, regional or slang words count as bonus words instead of errors. Our first one opened a pop-up explaining that bonus words keep the base game fair, appear on the leaderboards, and usually outnumber the required words about two to one. On this board, JUTE and NOME both landed in the bonus list. Guesses outside the list just show "Not in list", with no penalty.
Reveals are scarce: we had one available. Keep it for the last word that the tile counts cannot narrow down.
Which day you play changes the puzzle
The help text says new puzzles arrive at 3am US Pacific time, Mondays are easiest, Fridays hardest, Saturdays have twists and Sundays have tons of words; a 3x3 Express puzzle also comes out every day. Creator Michael Giuffrida's 2022 interview with WordFinder put numbers on that curve: on Mondays about 75% of players finished, on Sundays only about 25%. Yesterday and Past tabs give older boards, and the Squaredle Squared subscription, with a 7-day free trial, adds premium puzzles and settings.
