Gridwit is a word-guessing game: you guess a hidden word, and the tiles tell you how close you were. Mint means right letter, right spot. Amber means the letter is in the word but in a different spot. Slate means it isn't in the word. With five difficulties from 4 to 8 letters and modes like the daily puzzles, Rush and Fib, a little strategy goes a long way. Here's how to solve in fewer guesses.
Start with common letters
Your first guess should test as many common letters as possible. In English the most common letters are E, T, A, O, I, N, S, R and L. A first guess that contains five different common letters, and no repeats, tells you far more than a guess with rare letters like Q or Z.
Your second guess should usually test new letters rather than reuse the first guess's letters. Two guesses with ten different common letters often reveal most of the word, even if neither guess was close.
Read amber correctly
Beginners often treat amber as "somewhere, I don't know where." But amber tells you something precise: the letter is in the word, and not in that spot. If an R is amber in the first spot, the R must be in one of the other spots. Two ambers for the same letter in different spots narrow it down even further.
Slate is just as useful: every slate letter can be ignored for the rest of the game, and the keyboard greys them out for you. Wit the owl will tease you if you reuse one.
Repeated letters
Words like "eerie" or "llama" have repeated letters, and the colours follow a simple rule: mint letters are counted first, then amber up to the number of times the letter really appears, and any extra copies are slate. So if you guess a word with two Es and only one lights up, the word has exactly one E. If both light up, it has at least two.
When you're stuck with most letters found but the word won't come, consider a repeated letter. It's a common blind spot.
The difficulty rules
- Easy (4 letters, 7 tries) and Normal (5 letters, 6 tries) let you guess anything.
- Hard (6 letters) requires you to keep mint letters in place and use every amber letter in later guesses.
- Expert (7 letters) adds one more rule: an amber letter can't go back into a spot where it was already shown amber.
- Brutal (8 letters) uses Expert's rules, gives no hints, and allows only 60 seconds per guess.
Because Hard and above force you to keep your clues, you can't "waste" a guess on all-new letters to explore. Plan each guess to test new letters in the open spots around your clues. Longer words also have more predictable endings: in 7- and 8-letter words, look for patterns like -TION, -MENT, -ABLE or -NESS.
Use hints wisely
Two hints are available on most difficulties:
- Pin reveals one letter in its correct spot.
- Sweep greys out three letters that aren't in the word.
In scored modes each hint costs points, though Easy's first hint is free. Sweep is best early, when many letters are still unknown. Pin is best late, when you're stuck between several possible words.
Daily scoring
You get five Daily words each day, one per difficulty, and everyone gets the same words. Your score is based mainly on how few guesses you needed: every unused try is worth 100 points. Finishing quickly adds a smaller bonus of up to 300 points, and the total is multiplied by the difficulty (Brutal is worth four times Easy). One saved guess is worth about as much as a minute and a half of speed, so don't rush into bad guesses. The timer starts when you type your first letter, so take your time looking at the empty board.
Gauntlet and Rush
In Gauntlet, words get longer every three solves, and every try you don't use is banked as a spare row (up to five). If you run out of tries, a spare row saves you, for a small point cost. Solving early words quickly builds spares for the harder words later.
In Rush, you have three minutes of 5-letter words. Solving in three guesses or fewer adds 20 seconds; solving in four to six adds 10. Missing a word costs 15 seconds. A fast, reliable opening guess that you use every time is a big advantage here.
Surviving Fib mode
In Fib mode, exactly one tile in every row shows the wrong colour, except on the correct answer, which always shows all mint. That changes how you think:
- Never trust a single row completely. Look for colours that two different rows agree on. The keyboard only colours a letter once two rows agree.
- Long-press a tile to mark it with 🤥 when you suspect it's the liar.
- If a row's colours seem impossible together (for example, a letter shown mint in one row and slate in another), one of those tiles is lying.
- You get 8 tries in Fib, so use a couple of extra guesses to double-check.
Challenge your friends
Challenge a friend lets you choose any real word with 4 to 8 letters and send it as a link. Your friend gets the same number of tries as that word length's difficulty. Pick a word with repeated letters or an unusual ending if you want to make it tough.
Play Gridwit and try a two-guess opening with ten different common letters.