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A 2 player word search that is actually a race

Most word searches are something you do alone with a pencil. This one puts two people on opposite sides of the same pile of words — one hiding, one hunting — with a grid filling up in the background the whole time.

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First time? How to Play

Already picked one for you — change it if you like.

Pick your character

How two players share one board

Both players see the same field of scattered words, generated from the same seed, so nobody gets an easier arrangement. What differs is your job in the round. The chooser picks a word and then disappears into their own grid; the finder is left staring at forty words looking for the one that was picked.

That asymmetry is what makes it a race rather than a puzzle. A finder who is quick starves the chooser of fill time. A finder who dithers hands them half a row.

Tactics that actually work

  • Pick a word that blends in. Short words hide well among other short words. A nine-letter word in a pool of five-letter words is spotted instantly.
  • Watch the edges. Finders tend to sweep the middle first, so a word tucked near a corner buys you an extra second or two.
  • Do not read every word. As the finder, match on shape and length first. You are looking for a silhouette, not reading a list.
  • Tap in a rhythm. Filling cells is not a race against a timer, it is a race against another human being's eyes. Steady beats frantic.

Setting up a match with someone else

Choose Play with a Friend, set the pool size and grid, and you get a six character room code and a link. Send either one. When they open it they are in your room — there is no account step, no invite email and no app to install. If you would rather warm up first, the bot plays by exactly the same rules.

How to play

Choose → Find → Fill → Switch → Repeat. Fill your grid to take the round; win the rounds to take the match.

  1. Choose

    On your turn, pick any item from the scattered pool — a word, a number or a letter. You have 30 seconds.

  2. Find

    Your opponent has to spot that exact item among all the others and tap it.

  3. Fill

    While they search, you tap cells on your own grid. Every tap fills one X.

  4. Switch

    The moment they find it, your fill window closes and the roles swap.

Common questions

Can two people play a word search on one phone?
You can pass one phone back and forth, but the game is designed for two devices. Each player needs their own screen because the chooser is filling a private grid at the same moment the finder is searching.
How long does a match take?
A single 4×4 round usually runs two or three minutes. A best of 5 on a 4×8 grid with a 50-item pool can stretch well past twenty, because every cell has to be earned during a fill window.
Is there a letter grid to trace through?
No. The pool is made of complete words. You are looking for the word "planet" written out in full, not for P-L-A-N-E-T hidden along a diagonal.