GUIDE

How to play Sixordle

Sixordle takes the word-guessing format you already know and stacks it six boards deep. Instead of solving one five-letter word, you're solving six of them at the same time, using the same set of guesses across all of them. It sounds harder than it is — the trick is learning to read six boards at once instead of one.

The basic rules

Each puzzle gives you six hidden five-letter words and a shared pool of guesses. Every time you enter a five-letter word, it's checked against all six answers simultaneously, and each board gives you its own feedback:

Green — that letter is correct, and it's in the right spot for that board.
Yellow — that letter appears in that board's word, but in a different position.
Grey — that letter doesn't appear anywhere in that board's word.

Because your guess is scored six separate times, one word can be a great guess for board 3 and a wasted one for board 5. Reading the pattern across all six rows at once, rather than solving them one at a time, is the entire skill of the game.

A worked example

Say your first guess is CRANE. Two of the six boards might come back looking like this:

Board 1 — R is in the word but not position 2; N is confirmed in position 4.

Board 2 — C is confirmed first; E is somewhere else in the word.

You now have five more clues bundled into that single guess. Your next word should try to satisfy as many boards as possible at once — for instance, testing where that stray R and E might land — rather than chasing just one board to a solved state while ignoring the rest.

Guess limits and scoring

You get a fixed number of shared guesses to close out all six boards — enough to make it fair, not enough to brute-force it. A board is solved the moment all five of its letters turn green; solved boards stay visible so you can track your progress, but you keep guessing until every board is solved or you run out of tries.

New to word-guessing games generally? Every guess has to be a real five-letter word — the game will reject anything that isn't in the dictionary. Guesses are not case-sensitive, and there's no penalty for guessing a word that turns out to have no letters in common with any board; you'll just want to avoid repeating it.

Tips for your first puzzle

Start broad, not clever. Your opening guesses should maximize the number of different, common letters you test — vowels and frequent consonants like R, S, T, L, N — rather than trying to guess a specific word.
Track letters per board, not globally. A letter that's grey on board 2 can still be green on board 5. Keep separate mental (or written) notes for each of the six words.
Prioritize boards that are close to solved. Once a board has three or four green tiles, it usually takes less effort to finish than a board that's still wide open — clearing it frees up your attention for the harder ones.
Don't waste guesses confirming what you already know. If a letter is already green in a position across every board where it could matter, spend that slot testing a new letter instead.

Read on for a deeper look at starter words and letter strategy, or jump straight in and learn by playing — most people get the hang of it within a puzzle or two.

Play Sixordle →