Letter Drop

Six columns, five rows, thirty letters. Somewhere in there are four adjacent letters that spell a real word — down a column or across a row — and claiming them takes them out of the well, so everything above the hole falls. Clear three words and you win. Claim four letters that spell nothing and it costs you a try, and the tries run out.

The catch is gravity. Taking a word out of a column moves nothing but that column. Taking one out of a row pulls a letter from each of four columns at once, and every letter above them drops a place — which can strand the word you were saving, or line up one that was not there a moment ago. The counter above the board tells you how many runs currently spell a word, so you can watch that happen instead of finding out afterwards.

It runs entirely on your device: 0 network requests, works offline. No ads, no account, nothing to buy, and no betting, money or prizes of any kind.

1. Focus the well — click it, or press Tab until it is outlined.
2. Move the cursor with the arrow keys, or WASD. It clamps at the edges rather than wrapping, so you never lose your place mid-run.
3. Choose the first letter of the word with Enter or Space. That cell gets a ▲ 1st mark.
4. Look for the ◇ end marks. They appear on the one or two cells that are exactly four away in a straight line — the only cells that could finish a run from where you are. Press F to jump the cursor straight onto one instead of counting.
5. Choose the far end the same way. The four letters between the two ends are read in the order you named them, so a word written upwards is claimed from its first letter at the bottom.
6. Right? The run clears, the word is listed under the board, and everything above the hole falls. Wrong? You are told exactly what those four letters spelled, and it costs one try.
7. Changed your mind? Choose the same cell again, or press Esc or Backspace. That is free — and so is choosing a cell that is not four away, which simply moves your first letter there rather than charging you for a mis-aim.
8. Clear three words before the tries run out.

How do you find four-letter words in a grid of letters?

Read runs, not letters. There are only 27 four-cell runs in this well — twelve down the columns and fifteen across the rows — so instead of staring at thirty letters hoping something jumps out, walk the twelve columns first: each column holds exactly two runs, and reading both takes a couple of seconds. Read each one in both directions, because a word written upwards looks like nonsense read downwards, and about half of them are written that way. Columns before rows is not arbitrary either: a column clear cannot disturb anything else on the board, so a word you find in a column is a word you can bank whenever you like. Then do the rows, which is where the decisions are.

Is the well always winnable?

Yes, and by construction rather than by luck. Four words are written into four different columns before a single filler letter is placed, and a column clear only ever affects its own column — gravity moves letters down, never sideways. So those four words are mutually independent: taking any one of them out leaves the other three exactly where they were, in any order, and three clears are always available. Nothing is left to trust: a search then runs over the finished well, works out the longest chain of clears it can find, and that number is both checked against the target and used to set your try budget. The test suite re-plays the whole argument on thirty different wells by actually winning them, one column at a time, through the same keys you press.

Can I make the well unwinnable myself?

You can, and that is the game. A row clear takes one letter out of four columns at once, so it can break up to four of the vertical words at the same time. It is often worth it — a row word is a clear like any other, and the columns underneath are untouched — but it is a decision rather than a freebie. If you do strand the board, the round ends there and then rather than leaving you tapping at a well that can no longer do anything: no four letters spelling a word and the target not met is a loss, and it says so.

Why is there a limit on wrong claims?

Because without one there is nothing to think about. You could name every pair of ends on the board in turn and the words would fall out on their own — thirty seconds of clicking with no reading involved. Costing a wrong claim turns scanning into verification: read the four letters, decide, then commit. The number of tries is not fixed by hand either. It is computed from the well itself — how many runs spell a word at the deal, and how much clearing room the search found — so a well that shows you less forgives you more, and a generous one forgives you less.

Is there any money, betting or in-app purchase in this?

None, and there never will be. No currency, no prizes, nothing to buy, no lives to refill, and no wager of any kind. It is a puzzle.

Can I play it with a keyboard or a screen reader?

Both, with the same rules — which is exactly why a word is claimed by naming two cells rather than by dragging across four. Arrows move, Enter chooses, F jumps to the far end so nobody has to count cells with arrow presses, Esc releases. Every letter is a real button with a spoken label giving its column, its row, its letter and whether it is the chosen first letter or a reachable far end, and the live region announces the cleared count, the runs still spelling a word, the tries left and what your last claim did. The two board states carry the words 1st and end as well as a tint, so nothing here depends on telling colours apart.

What happens to the letters above a word I clear?

They fall straight down the column they are in, and only that column. A column here is a stack resting on the floor: remove four letters from the middle of it and the rest close up towards the bottom, so a letter can drop but can never slide sideways into the next column. That is the whole of the physics, and it is why a column clear is safe and a row clear is not.

Does it work offline?

Yes. Once the page has loaded once, the whole game is on your device — the well, the word list, the rules and the scoring. Nothing is fetched while you play, and there is no server involved at any point.

Six columns by five rows, thirty letters, words of exactly four letters drawn from this site's own list of 1292 common English four-letter words. Rows and columns only — there are no diagonals here, unlike a word search. Three words to win; the wrong-claim budget runs from three to eight depending on what the well shows and how much clearing room it has. There is no timer, no falling piece to outrun, no daily streak to protect and no hint button: the counter above the board is the hint.

Word Hunt is the other word game here that asks you to read a grid rather than recall vocabulary — six words hidden in eight directions, and nothing on the board ever moves. Word Ladder rewards planning over vocabulary in a different way, turning one word into another a single letter at a time. Stone Drop is the same gravity with no words in it at all, if you want the collapse mechanic on its own.

Bookmark this page (Ctrl+D, or ⌘D on Mac) or install the app — it works offline the next time you need it.