Daily Scroggle Instructions

Instructions: Find words of 4 or more letters. Click on the first letter with your mouse, drag the mouse to select the rest of the word, and then release the mouse button. The message under the board tells you if you found a word and how much it was worth. You can unselect letters in the word by moving the mouse back over the letters.

Once a word is found it appears on the list at the right. This list tells you the length and points for every word. Below the list is the total number of words and total points and your current word and point totals.

Every time you find a word it will attempt to save the word to the server. If the word is valid the tiles change to green. Red for invalid words. Purple for words already found. If your computer fails to send the word back to the server the tiles will turn dark, and error will be displayed and the word will not be scored. Check your Internet connection and try the word again.

There is a new puzzle every day starting at 10PM US Eastern Standard Time (EST) (New York Time) If you're not sure when that is, the time remaining is shown above the puzzle.

If you complete the puzzle for the day you can play the previous puzzles from the Puzzle Archive starting fresh or picking up where you left off. The words found are not saved. The Statistics only records the words found for the day the puzzle was live. If you leave the screen then all progress is lost. If you need help, click the word and ask for a letter clue or the definition.

The word list used for the puzzles is available as a zip or text file. Words containing the symbols - ' ! and % aren't used by the game. This is just the way the open source dictionary was created. Note: The dictionary changes over time and older puzzles didn't use the latest dictionary so expect some new words and some missing words, especially if you are using the Puzzle Archive.

Scoring: Each letter is worth a different number of points which is displayed under the letter. The points for a word is calculated by totaling the value of each letter and then multiplying by the length of the word. The "Qu" tile counts as 2 letters.

For example: PACK is worth 40 points, displayed as 4/40. The P is worth 2 points, the A is worth 1, the C is worth 2, and the K is worth 5 for a total of 10 points. 10 multiplied by 4 (the length of the word) gives you 40 points.

Historical statistics, the puzzle archive and all time scores are updated once a day - within minutes of the puzzle reset.

Strategy: The word list is alphabetical so you should have an idea what letters the missing words start with. Remember to add common a prefix/suffix to words that you have already found for even more words. Ex: Turn becomes Turns, Return, Returns...

A short word with very high points is a good indication that it contains the letter K or W or some other high point letter. You should be able to limit the number of possible choices for a word just by determining how many points it is worth.

Players work together to come up with a 2 letter word list. They will update this in the box above the puzzle. Ex: "6al 2at ..." means there are 6 words that begin with AL and 2 words that begin with AT. You must play at least 50 puzzles before you can update the 2 letter word list. To update the list just enter a new clue and hit enter.

With 12 hours left in the puzzle you can click a word you are missing and then click the Hint button. This will provide the first 2 letters of the word and the definition of the word under the puzzle.

If all else fails, you can always use the chat to ask for help. Please don't give away words when asking for or providing help. You can say "Can someone help me with 7/77 LI" -> This is a 7 letter 77 point word starting with LI. When providing help give the person a clue. Don't give them the answer outright. If you don't know the definition of a word, you can just click the word and the definition will be displayed at the bottom of the game. You can also tell them where the word appears on the board as a hint.

Registration: You must be a registered user to save your scores, compete with others, and to use the chat. Registration is free, and no personal information is required. You can even make up the e-mail address if you don't want to share. Just don't complain if you forget your password. Note: We do not use your e-mail address for anything except password recovery.

Chat: Type in the chat dialog and hit the enter key on your keyboard to send a chat message. You must be registered and logged in to chat. Click the mute button in a user's chat message and you will not see any more chat messages from them. To un-mute a user, go to the Account page.

The Online tab shows all users that are currently connected to the chat server. Many people leave the game open all day so use the Last Activity time to determine if they are really around.

Click on the yellow smiley face for Emoji icons. If the face turns red, then the chat server has disconnected. It should automatically reconnect on its own. Check your Internet connection.

Definitions: You can get the definition of words simply by clicking on them. This works both in the game and in the puzzle archive. After you have played 50 puzzles you have the ability to propose updates to word definitions. Just click the word to get the definition, then click the Update button to the left of the definition.

Flags: You can show what country you are from by picking a flag from the Account page. This flag will appear next to your name in the chat and other windows.

Avatar Icons: Use the Account page to add an icon next to your name in the high score and chat windows. You can either use one of our avatars by clicking on "Custom Avatars" from the Personalize page, or you can download your own. To download your own icon, you must first find an icon to upload to this site. You can Google avatars for some sites that provide free images. Find an icon you like and right click on it and select save. From the Account page, click the upload button and browse to the avatar you just saved.

The icon must be a .jpg, .gif, or .png file. The maximum dimensions are 100 pixels high and 150 pixels wide. You can upload larger avatar images, but they will be automatically scaled down and saved as a jpeg. This means that animated gifs will not be animated and transparent backgrounds are lost. If the image is less than 150x100, then the image file is not modified and animation and transparency are not lost.

Mobile Devices: Use the right side of the screen to scroll when using small mobile devices (phones, tablets...). Dragging on the game, a word list, or a chat window will only scroll within that area. The right side of the screen has been reserved for scrolling outside of the game. Don't zoom in to the game with your Android mobile. Once you do this, clicking the puzzle will drag the game instead of selecting tiles on the game.

You may also try the Mobile Friendly version of the game.

Enlarge/Shrink Game: You can control the zoom of your desktop browser by:

• Hold down Control key on keyboard and use scroll wheel on the mouse.
• Hold down Control key and press + or - keys. May need to hold down both Control and Shift.
• Click the settings button at the top right of the browser and look for the Zoom option.

Awards: Medals are awarded for number of puzzles played and number of puzzles solved. Award totals are not updated until the next puzzle begins.