- Ristikkotupa
- Games
- Hidden Word
A single five-letter word hides behind six empty rows. Type a guess and every letter gets a mark: right letter in the right place, right letter in the wrong place, or not in the word at all. Six tries to work it out.
How Hidden Word works
Type any real five-letter word, with the keys on screen or on a keyboard of your own, and confirm with Enter. A solid square means that letter is in the word and in that position. A round tile means the letter is in the word but somewhere else. A faded tile says the letter is absent — or, if you used it twice, that the answer holds it only once.
The marks differ in shape, not only in colour, so they read clearly in both colour themes and for colour-blind players. The keyboard keeps the best mark for every letter you have tried. Only words from the language’s list are accepted, so a guess can never be a random string of letters used as a probe.
Easy takes the answer from the most common third of the five-letter words, Medium from the most common two thirds and Hard from the whole common list. Hard switches on a stricter rule: whatever you have uncovered must come back in later guesses, and a letter that sits in the right place stays put.
Ways to narrow it down
- Open with five different letters. A first guess with two or three common vowels and a few common consonants tells you more than one with a repeated letter.
- Use the second guess to test new letters. Unless the first guess lit up three letters or more, a second guess built from five untried letters often beats trying to place the ones you already have.
- Think about positions. A round tile tells you where a letter is not. The same letter marked round in two guesses rules out two positions at once.
- Remember double letters. If nothing seems to fit, the word may repeat a letter: in Finnish ‘aa’ and ‘kk’ are everywhere, in Italian ‘ll’ and ‘tt’.
- Mind the alphabet. Hungarian words often use á, é, ő and ű, Italian answers can end in an accented vowel and Finnish ones are full of ä and ö. The keyboard shows the extra letters of each language.
Questions about Hidden Word
What do the square and round marks mean?
A square means right letter, right place. A round tile means the letter is in the word, but elsewhere. A faded tile: absent, or present fewer times than in your guess.
Why can’t I type any five letters?
Guesses must be real words from the list. That keeps the game fair: every guess is a word, just like the answer.
Can I take a guess back?
No. A guess, once entered, stays; that is what makes the six tries count. Hidden Word has no undo and no restart.
What happens after six wrong guesses?
The answer is shown and the puzzle counts as played but not solved. Your run of days continues as long as you solve at least one puzzle each day.
Do hints give the word away?
A hint shows one letter of the answer and is counted in the result. The rest of the word is still yours to find.