Word Grid

Word Grid is sixteen letters in a square and three minutes on the clock. Join letters that touch — sideways, up, down or diagonally — and every real word you trace is worth points, with longer words worth disproportionately more. No letter may be used twice in the same word, but it is free again for the next one.

Every grid is checked before you see it. The game solves each board it generates and throws it away if there are fewer than twenty words in it, so nobody is handed sixteen consonants and a countdown. The average board holds about forty.

When the clock runs out you get your score and the longest words you walked past, which is the part that makes the next round better. The word list is the same curated one the anagram game uses — common English, not a full dictionary — so what it accepts is what you would actually think of.