Six words, one scrambled grid
Letter Swap is a puzzle of rearrangement. The board is a 5×5 grid with four gaps, which leaves 21 tiles. Three five-letter words read across the top, middle and bottom rows. Three more read down the left, middle and right columns. Every letter you need is already there. They are only in the wrong places, and you fix them by swapping pairs of tiles.
Two numbers matter. Your swap budget is the fewest swaps the puzzle needs plus five spare. Every swap you do not use becomes a star when you finish, up to five. So the real goal is not just to solve the grid, but to solve it without wasted moves.
Know which tiles serve two words
Not all tiles are equal. Nine of them sit where a row and a column cross: the four corners, the middle of each edge, and the centre. Each of these belongs to two words at once. The other twelve tiles belong to one word only.
This changes how you read the colours.
- Yellow on a single-word tile means the letter belongs somewhere else in that one word. That is precise information.
- Yellow on a crossing tile could come from either the row or the column. Treat it with more care.
- Grey means the letter is not wanted in this spot by either word through it. Because repeated letters are counted, a grey tile can still be needed elsewhere if the word's copies are already accounted for.
Green tiles are locked and cannot move. That is helpful, because it shrinks the puzzle as you go.
Solve words before you swap
The biggest mistake is swapping as soon as you see a likely move. Instead, work out the six words first, then plan the swaps.
Start with the words that have the most greens. Here is a worked example. Say the top row shows S, then an unknown, then A, then an unknown, then E, with those three letters green. The row reads S, blank, A, blank, E. A yellow T in the second slot tells you T belongs in this word but not there. The only open slot left is the fourth, so the word is S, blank, A, T, E. Now check which letters are still out of place on the board. If there is a spare L, SLATE fits. If there is a spare K and no L, it must be SKATE. You know the word before you touch a tile.
Do the same for every row and column. Crossing tiles help here: a letter you settle in a column also settles one slot of a row.
Make every swap count
Once you know where each letter belongs, plan the swaps so none are wasted.
- Look for two-way swaps first. If tile A belongs where tile B is, and tile B belongs where tile A is, one swap turns both green. These are the swaps that save you moves.
- Avoid swaps that turn nothing green. Make every swap move at least one tile straight to its home. Swapping two tiles that both stay wrong is hard to track and easily wastes a move.
- Choose between duplicates carefully. When a letter appears more than once, several tiles could fill the same slot. Pick the copy that also lets you set up a two-way swap later.
- Work in loops. When three or more tiles each sit in another's place, fix them one at a time, always moving a tile straight to its home. A loop of three tiles takes two swaps. A loop of four takes three.
To deselect a tile you picked up by mistake, tap it again. That costs nothing.
Getting to five stars
There are no difficulty levels. Every puzzle is freshly scrambled from common five-letter words, and each one starts with a fair number of misplaced tiles. Your progress shows in your stars.
A good path is to first solve every puzzle within the budget, however many stars you get. Next, aim for three stars by always looking for two-way swaps before anything else. Finally, aim for five, which means solving with the fewest swaps possible. That only happens when you know all six words before your first swap. If you enjoy this kind of letter deduction, Word Guess uses the same green and yellow reading on a single word.
