Place tiles to spell words and score points. Every subsequent word played must connect to or share at least one tile.
🟩
Find the Secret Word
Uncover the hidden four-letter word. Play four-letter words to unlock color tiles: Green means the letter is perfectly placed. Yellow means it belongs in the word but a different position. Gray means it's not used at all.
💥
Explode the board
Full squares explode and steal their neighbors. Every new tile you place gets an orb, and any square you already own next to it gains one more orb per turn. When a square is full, it pops.
About Spellosion
Spellosion is a free two-player word game for your phone or computer. Build words on a shared board, race to find the hidden four-letter secret word, and set off chain-reaction explosions to claim squares. Play the computer, a friend online, or pass the device. Read the full how-to-play guide.
☕
Support the game
Spellosion is free and made by one person. If you're enjoying it, a voluntary tip helps keep it going. It's optional and doesn't unlock anything.
Out-score your opponent by building words, and be the first to crack the one secret 4-letter word you are both hunting.
🔤 1. Build words
Tap a rack letter, then an empty board cell. Place several tiles in one row or column, then tap Play Word. The first word must cover the ★ center square; every later word must connect to tiles already on the board (you may extend or cross existing words). Every word formed must be a real word. You'll see a live check of your word and its score as you place tiles. Longer words score more; 5+ letters earns a bonus, and using all 7 tiles earns +20.
🟩 2. Find the secret word
You and your opponent are hunting the same hidden 4-letter word, picked from the game's theme. Whenever you play a 4-letter word, its tiles turn color on your board (your opponent can't see them):
Green = right letter, right spot Yellow = letter is in the word, wrong spot Gray = letter isn't in the word
Colorblind? Tap the 🎨 link at the bottom of the page: green becomes orange and yellow becomes blue. Tiles also carry ✓, ? and ✗ marks.
Each green tile earns you a ⚡ token. Spend a token on a probe: type any 4-letter word and see its green, yellow and gray pattern privately. A probe doesn't use one of your guesses, but it uses your whole turn, and if it turns out to be the secret word, you win on the spot. Your token count is private. When you think you know it, tap Guess Secret (3 guesses each). The first correct guess wins instantly! If nobody solves it, the game reveals the secret word at the end.
💥 3. Explosions
Think of every square as a little cup with slots for orbs. You'll see the slots as dots on the square: ● = an orb is in it, ○ = an empty slot.
The one rule: when every slot in a square is full, it POPS. It gives 1 orb to each square touching it and turns those squares your color.
Those neighbors just got an orb, so they might fill up and pop too. That's the chain reaction!
How many slots? Corner squares have 2, edge squares 3, middle squares 4 (one slot per touching square).
How do orbs get in? Just by playing words: • Each new tile you place gets 1 orb. • Every square you already own that touches your new tiles gets +1 orb (once per turn). So building next to your own tiles charges them up, and a full square pops, stealing its neighbors, including your opponent's.
Why bother? At the end, every square you own is worth 1 point. Pops steal squares from your opponent.
Example: Your tile sits in a corner with 1 orb (● ○). Next turn you play a word with a tile touching it: the corner gets +1 (● ●). It's full, so it POPS! Its 2 neighbors each get an orb and become yours.
🤖 Playing the computer
Tap Play the computer on the start screen and pick Easy, Normal or Hard. It builds words and hunts the same secret word you do, so watch out: it can guess the word first!
🔄 Stuck?
Swap Rack trades your whole rack for new tiles and ends your turn (3 swaps each per game). Pass just ends it; four passes in a row end the game.
🏆 Game end
The bag holds only 60 tiles. The game ends when nobody can make another word, someone empties their rack after the bag runs out, someone guesses the secret word (it's revealed if no one does), or four passes happen in a row. Highest total wins: word points + owned cells. Racks are balanced so you always get a healthy mix of vowels and consonants. Your game auto-saves, so a refresh lets you resume.
Spellosion is free, for entertainment, and provided "as is" and "as available" without warranties of any kind. There is no guarantee of uninterrupted service or that online connections will work on every network. To the fullest extent permitted by law, the creator is not liable for any damages arising from use of the game. Please play fair and be kind: do not use the game to harass others or to attempt to disrupt it.
Supporting the game
Spellosion is free to play. Where a support link is shown, tips are entirely voluntary, unlock no extra features, and are not charitable donations or tax-deductible. Payments are handled by a third-party service with its own terms and privacy policy; this game never sees your payment details, and following the link takes you off this site.
Privacy
No accounts or analytics. Game progress and settings are saved only in your own browser (local storage) and can be cleared in your browser settings. The game does not collect personal information and is not directed at children under 13. Online play: to match you with a friend by game code, the game loads the open-source PeerJS library and uses the free PeerJS public connection service; to connect devices directly it uses public STUN servers (Google, Cloudflare). Those services, and your opponent, can see your IP address while you connect. Moves are then sent directly between your devices. There is no chat. These services have their own privacy policies.
Copyright concerns
The game's board, rules text, artwork and code were created for this project and use no content from other games. If you believe something here infringes your rights, email and it will be reviewed promptly.
Credits & licenses
Word list: SCOWL and WordNet, notices below.
PeerJS (peerjs.com), MIT License, loaded from a public CDN for online play.
Word list derived from SCOWL (Spell Checker Oriented Word Lists) via the en_US Hunspell dictionary.
Copyright 2000-2011 by Kevin Atkinson
Permission to use, copy, modify, distribute and sell these word lists, the associated scripts, the output created from the scripts, and its documentation for any purpose is hereby granted without fee, provided that the above copyright notice appears in all copies and that both that copyright notice and this permission notice appear in supporting documentation. Kevin Atkinson makes no representations about the suitability of this array for any purpose. It is provided "as is" without express or implied warranty.
SCOWL includes material from the public-domain Moby, 12Dicts, ENABLE and UK Advanced Cryptics word lists, and from WordNet:
WordNet 1.6 Copyright 1997 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
THIS SOFTWARE AND DATABASE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND PRINCETON UNIVERSITY MAKES NO REPRESENTATIONS OR WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED. BY WAY OF EXAMPLE, BUT NOT LIMITATION, PRINCETON UNIVERSITY MAKES NO REPRESENTATIONS OR WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PARTICULAR PURPOSE OR THAT THE USE OF THE LICENSED SOFTWARE, DATABASE OR DOCUMENTATION WILL NOT INFRINGE ANY THIRD PARTY PATENTS, COPYRIGHTS, TRADEMARKS OR OTHER RIGHTS. The name of Princeton University or Princeton may not be used in advertising or publicity pertaining to distribution of the software and/or database. Title to copyright in this software, database and any associated documentation shall at all times remain with Princeton University and LICENSEE agrees to preserve same.
Hand the device over, keep your secret word private.
👫 Play a friend online
No accounts. Create a game, then send your friend the link or the code.
Your game code
⏳ Waiting for your friend to join. Keep this page open.
Got a code? Join your friend's game:
Trouble connecting? Connect manually (advanced)
Swap two codes by text instead. One person taps Host, the other Join.