How to Play Word Ladder: Rules, Par and a Little History
In a word ladder you turn a start word into a target word by changing one letter at a time, and every step has to be a real word. COLD becomes WARM in four steps: COLD, CORD, CARD, WARD, WARM. The fewest steps a ladder can be climbed in is its par; on GameLake, reaching the target in par earns three stars.
The rules
A word ladder gives you two words of the same length: a start word and a target word. Your job is to build a chain of words between them. The rules are short:
- Change exactly one letter in each step.
- Keep the other letters where they are: no adding, removing or swapping letters around.
- Every word in the chain must be a real word. Names and abbreviations don't count.
- Keep going until you reach the target word.
Because COLD and WARM differ in all four letters, four steps is the best anyone can do, and here every letter changes exactly once. Many ladders aren't that tidy: sometimes a letter has to change twice, which costs an extra step. Our word ladder tips explain how to spot those detours.
How a step works on GameLake
In Word Ladder the start word sits at the bottom of the ladder and the target waits at the top. You climb one rung per step:
- Tap a letter in your current word, then tap its new letter on the keyboard. If the new word is real, it becomes the next rung at once.
- Or type a whole word and press Enter. On a computer you can use your own keyboard.
- A step that breaks the rules shakes and is refused, with the reason: the word isn't in the word list, you changed more than one letter, or it's the same word.
- Undo takes back the last step at any time, as often as you like.
- The letter you just changed lights up lime, and letters that already match the target get a small mark underneath, so you can see what is still left to change.
Hops the frog watches every step. He cheers when a word brings you closer to the target, calls it a sideways step when it's a real word but no closer, and warns you when a step takes you further away. That running commentary is a handy compass on longer ladders.
Par and stars
Every ladder has a par: the smallest number of steps that gets from the start to the target. The game works it out over its whole word list, and every puzzle is checked so that par can be reached using everyday words. Your stars depend on how close you get:
| Your ladder | Stars |
|---|---|
| Reach the target in par | 3 stars |
| One or two steps over par | 2 stars |
| Three or more steps over par | 1 star |
| Each Reveal a step you use | 1 star less (never below 1) |
Your score also counts how few steps you used and how fast you finished, with bigger points on harder levels. A revealed step lowers the score too, so it pays to think before asking for one.
Easy, Medium and Hard
The three practice levels differ in word length. Longer words have fewer neighbors (words one letter away), so their ladders are longer and need more planning.
| Level | Word length | Par |
|---|---|---|
| Easy | 3 letters (CAT, DOG) | 3 or 4 steps |
| Medium | 4 letters (COLD, WARM) | 4 or 5 steps |
| Hard | 5 letters (STONE, SHELL) | 5 to 7 steps |
The word list accepts ordinary word forms such as plurals and past tenses (CATS, RUNS, BAKED), but not names or abbreviations. If you'd like to warm up on paper first, try our word ladder examples with answers, sorted into the same three levels.
The Daily ladder and online races
- Daily: one 4-letter ladder a day, the same for everyone playing in your language. A new one arrives every day, and a ladder doesn't come back until all the others have been played.
- Race: choose Race, then Quick match to play the next person who's looking, or Play a friend to send a link or code. You both get the same 4-letter ladder after a short countdown, a bar shows how close each of you is, and the first to reach the target wins.
In a race there is no Teach me and no Reveal a step, but Undo still works. Speed matters more than par, so a quick sideways step can beat a long think.
Teach me and Reveal a step
Stuck? There are two kinds of help, and they work differently:
- Teach me has Hops name the next word on a shortest route and explain it, for example "Change the T in TIDE to W: WIDE. Then 2 more to WAVE." The letter to change and its key light up, and you make the move yourself. It costs nothing.
- Reveal a step plays the next rung for you, but costs a star and some points.
Teach me is the better choice when you want to learn: it shows the idea behind the move, not just the answer. When Hops points at a letter, ask yourself why that letter, and you'll start seeing the same moves on your own.
A short history: Lewis Carroll's Doublets
Word ladders were invented by Lewis Carroll, the author of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. He said he came up with the game at Christmas 1877 for two young friends who had nothing to do, and from 29 March 1879 he published the puzzles in the magazine Vanity Fair under the name Doublets. A small book of them followed the same year.
Carroll called the two given words the doublet, the words in between links, and the whole thing a chain. His first example turned HEAD into TAIL:
The puzzle has had many names since: laddergrams, word links, word chains and word golf, a name the novelist Vladimir Nabokov used in Pale Fire (1962), fitting for a game where you count strokes against par. The computer scientist Donald Knuth later studied ladders over 5,757 common five-letter English words and found that some words, like ALOOF, can't be linked to any other at all.
Frequently asked questions
How do you play a word ladder?
Change one letter at a time to turn the start word into the target word. Every word in between must be a real word, and the letters stay in their places. COLD to WARM goes COLD, CORD, CARD, WARD, WARM.
What does par mean in a word ladder?
Par is the fewest steps the ladder can be solved in. On GameLake, reaching the target in par gives three stars, one or two steps over gives two, and more gives one.
Who invented the word ladder?
Lewis Carroll, who published it as "Doublets" in Vanity Fair in 1879. His first puzzle turned HEAD into TAIL.
Can you add or remove letters in a word ladder?
No. Every word in the ladder has the same length as the start word, and you only replace one letter per step.
Is there a daily word ladder?
Yes. GameLake's Word Ladder has a new 4-letter Daily ladder every day, the same for everyone playing in your language.