How to Play Word Search Battle Online: Rules, Levels and Playing With a Friend

Word Search Battle is a word search you can race a friend on. Two players share one grid in the browser, and every word goes to whoever finds it first. You can also play alone against the clock. It is free, works on a phone, tablet or computer, and needs no account. Here is how it works.

Starting a game

Open the game. You land in the lobby, where you set up the game before anything starts.

Topic. If you came from a topic page, that topic is already chosen. Otherwise the lobby starts with the word search of the day and offers twenty other topics to pick from.
Level. Choose Easy, Medium or Hard. The game remembers your choice for next time.
Players. Press Start Single Player Game to play alone, or create a game and send its code to a friend.

Playing with a friend

Create a game and you get a short code. Send it to your friend, who enters it in their lobby to join. A game takes exactly two players.

Each of you picks a topic and a level. If you pick different ones, the game chooses one of the two at random, so neither player has to give way, and there are buttons to match your opponent’s choice if you would rather agree. When you are both ready, a 3-2-1 countdown starts the round.

Finding a word

Press the first letter of a word and drag across the grid. The selection snaps to a straight line, across, down or on the diagonal. As soon as the letters you cover spell a word on the list, it is yours: it lights up in your color on the grid and in the list. You do not need to lift your finger.

In a two-player game, a word belongs to whoever finds it first. Your opponent’s words appear in their color as they find them, with a sound, so you always know where the race stands.

The timer and how to win

The clock gives you one minute per word: 5 minutes on Easy, 15 on Medium and 23 on Hard. The last ten seconds come with a warning.

A round ends when every word is found, when time runs out, when a player gives up, or when the opponent leaves. Whoever found more words wins. Every level hides an odd number of words, so a round played to the end always has a winner. Alone, you win by finding every word before the clock runs out.

After a round, Play New Game sets up another one in the same room, so a rematch takes one click.

The three levels

The online game uses the same rules as the printable sheets:

Easy: a 10 by 10 grid with 5 short words, running only left to right or top to bottom. Good for young readers, and a fair way to give a younger player a chance.
Medium: a 12 by 12 grid with 15 words in all eight directions, no more than 4 of them backward and at most 2 two-word phrases.
Hard: a 15 by 15 grid with 23 words in all eight directions, any of them backward, and up to 4 phrases.

Your name and picture

There is nothing to sign up for. The game gives you a random name and picture the first time you play, and you can change your nickname and choose one of six pictures in the lobby. Your browser remembers them for next time.

On a phone or tablet

Drag with your finger the same way you would with a mouse. The board scales to fit the screen, and a full-screen button gives the grid all of it. Music and sound effects can be switched off, and the game remembers that too.

What changed recently

A steadier connection. The game now keeps an open connection to the server instead of asking for updates over and over. Players who paused for a moment used to see a false “No Internet Connection” warning; that is gone.
Grids that interlock. The puzzle maker now looks for places where words can share letters, builds each grid ten times and keeps the best. A medium grid now holds its full list of words almost every time, with several times as many crossings, so the board is harder to read at a glance.
No words hidden inside other words. A list will no longer have, say, Kansas and Arkansas together, where finding one gives away the other.
Clearer levels. Easy became left to right and top to bottom only, and Medium grew from a 10 by 10 grid to 12 by 12.

No screen? Battle on paper

Every printable sheet has a Battle a Friend box at the bottom: print one sheet, take a different color pen each, and the most words wins. The printable guide explains it, and How to Do a Word Search covers the basics for beginners.