How to play
Press Start game. Words appear at the top of the playfield and sink towards the dashed line at the bottom. Type a word to clear it: no clicking, no Enter, just its letters. Every word that reaches the line costs one of your three lives; the game ends when the last one is gone.
The first letter you type chooses the word. Its box gets a thick frame and the typed letters turn bold and underlined, so you always see where you are.
New to the keyboard? Pick Home row letters or All letters: single letters fall instead of words.
Rules
- Lives: you start with 3. A word that touches the dashed line takes one life; lives never come back.
- Targeting: with no word started, the letter you type locks on to the word that begins with it. Two words on screen never begin with the same letter, so one key always means one word.
- Lock: while a word is locked, every letter counts for that word only, until it is finished or lost. Backspace lets go of it and forgets the letters typed in it.
- Wrong key: a letter that is not the next one of the locked word, or begins no word when nothing is locked. It resets the combo and lowers accuracy but costs no life; the lock and your place in the word stay. Capitals count as the same letter; other keys are ignored.
- Score and combo: a word is worth 10 points per letter, times the combo. The combo starts at ×1 and rises by one for every 5 words in a row cleared without a wrong key, up to ×5 after 20 clean words. A wrong key or a lost word puts it back to ×1.
- Levels: every 10 cleared words raise the level. At level 1 a word falls for 12 seconds and a new one appears every 3.6 seconds. Each level cuts the fall by 0.75 seconds, down to 4.5 seconds at level 11, and the gap between words by 0.25 seconds, down to 0.6 seconds at level 13. Words grow from 2–4 letters on levels 1 and 2 to 4–9 letters from level 9.
- Letters modes: the home row mode uses A S D F G H J K L, the other all 26 letters. A letter appears every 2 seconds at level 1 and 0.125 seconds sooner on each level, down to 0.5 seconds at level 13. Otherwise the rules are the same; a letter is worth 10 points.
Controls
Keyboard
- A to Z type the words.
- Backspace lets go of the locked word.
- Esc pauses the game; any key continues it.
- Enter starts the game and, after a game over, the next one. For 0.7 seconds after a game ends key presses are ignored, so keys you were still hammering cannot start a new game.
- Tab moves to the buttons and the mode choice; leaving the playfield pauses the game.
Phone and tablet
Tap Start game and type on the on-screen keyboard. The playfield moves to the top of the screen and shrinks to fit above the keyboard. Tap Pause to stop and the playfield to go on.
Pausing
The game also pauses when you switch to another tab or window or click outside the playfield. Restart and a change of mode drop the current game without saving its score.
Tips and strategy
- Lowest word first. The word nearest to the line is the only one that can hurt you right now.
- Clean beats fast. At ×5 every word is worth five times as much, and a single wrong key throws that away.
- Clear the screen to climb. After the last word on screen is cleared, the next one arrives in 0.35 seconds, so quick typists pass the early levels fast.
- Learn the keys first. If you still hunt for letters, play the home row mode or take the lessons in Typing Practice.
Frequently asked questions
How is the speed in WPM worked out?
Correct key presses divided by five, per minute of play; paused time is not counted. The game decides when words appear, so the figure shows the pace you kept, not your top speed. For a proper measurement use the Typing Speed Test.
How fast do I have to type?
Level 1 asks for roughly 12 WPM (five key presses count as one word), which suits a slow typist. Around level 5 you need about 20, around level 9 about 35, and from level 13 close to 95.
Does it work on a phone?
Yes. The game reads what the on-screen keyboard types. If the keyboard closes, tap the playfield to open it again.
Is anything saved or sent anywhere?
Only the chosen mode and, when a game ends, your best score and highest level for each mode, in this browser's local storage. A game in progress is not saved. Nothing is sent to a server.
More free games
- Typing Practice – touch typing lessons.
- Typing Speed Test – measure your speed.
- Reaction Time Test – test your reflexes.
- Word Guess – find the hidden five-letter word.
- Hangman – guess the word letter by letter.
- Word Search – find hidden words.
- Snake – grow without hitting anything.
- Memory – match the pairs.