One player, one field, one clock.

Swap two letters.

Tap one letter, then another. They trade places. That is one move; there is no limit on how many you make. Each move is scored the moment it lands, and your next one opens as soon as you have seen the score.

A swap need not put both letters in a word. A letter moves only once: if a letter you moved is not part of a word, it stays where it landed, in terracotta, and it is out of the game. No one can move it again and no word can use it: to your words it is the edge of the board.

You cannot move a frozen or grey letter.

Three letters or more, in a straight line.

After each swap lands, the field is read across and down from the two letters that moved. Every new run of three or more letters that is an English word scores. A word counts read either way: left to right or right to left, top to bottom or bottom to top. A run that is a word both ways scores once, the forward reading. Every form of a word counts, and a word scores again if you form it somewhere new. When a swap could score different words, the choice that covers the most new letters scores. On a tie the longer word scores, then the one whose swapped letter is nearer its start, then the one that starts nearer the edge of the field.

Each swapped letter scores one word at most: the best word through it, chosen as above. So a move scores at most two words, one through each letter, or one word through both.

A new word may lie right beside a frozen word, end against one or cross one: the letters around it never stop it scoring. A frozen word is closed: no word may lengthen it or share its letters in its own direction, so frozen words can only be crossed, never lengthened.

A word is drawn as a band in your ink, with a chevron at the end where reading begins.

Scored letters freeze in your ink.

Every letter of a scored word freezes, and frozen letters cannot be swapped again. A new word may cross one already scored.

When fewer than two letters are left free to move, the field is full and the game ends.

Ground, not letters.

A move scores 1 for each letter it freezes; a letter already frozen adds nothing.

Your total is written on the scoreboard and counts up as each band lands.

Five minutes for the whole game.

One clock of 5:00, in the scoreboard above the field. It starts when the game starts and never pauses, not while you wait for a score and not while you are away. Under 1:00 it darkens, and the last 15 seconds are counted in words. It blinks through the last 15 seconds, and in the last five it turns red every other second, with a tick each second. A move that reaches the server before 0:00 counts, even if its score lands after.

Nothing counts down: make as many moves as you like. When you are done, press Finish the game beside your name above the field: it ends the game and scores it as played.

Beat your best.

The game ends when the clock runs out, or when the field is full. Your rating is the average of your best 8 scores in your last 10 games; your best game stands as the score to beat.

Until you make your first move you may cancel the game, and it is not counted. A game in which you have made no move when the clock runs out is cancelled the same way.