Forage
You get a handful of letters. Make words out of them until you have filled the slots for each word length.
- Four levels: Easy to Extra Hard
How Forage Works
Each puzzle gives you a handful of letters under Your Letters: 5 on Easy, up to 8 on Extra Hard. Tap letters to spell a word and press Enter. Each letter can be used once per word, and all of them come back for the next one, so the same handful keeps giving new words.
The goal board asks for a few words of each length. On Easy that is three 3-letter words and three of 4 letters or more. The puzzle ends as soon as every slot is filled, so you never have to find every word the letters can make. Real words beyond the goal collect in a Bonus section.
Every puzzle's letters spell one word that uses all of them, and on Hard and Extra Hard the goal asks for it. The words the goal needs are common ones, but any real word the letters spell is accepted: the game checks against a dictionary of about 110,000 words.
Trying a word Forage does not know costs nothing. Sending that same word again, or a word you already found, costs a heart. A practice board starts with 5 hearts against the usual 3, because trying words is how Forage is played; in the daily set they never run out.
The Rules
- 1
Build a Word
Tap letters in Your Letters to spell a word, then press Enter. Each letter is used once per word, and every one comes back for the next. A word needs at least 3 letters, or 4 on Hard and Extra Hard.
- 2
Sending a Word Twice Costs a Heart
Trying a word Forage does not know costs nothing. Sending that same word again, or a word you have already found, costs a heart. Hearts never run out in the daily set.
- 3
Fill the Goal
The goal board asks for a few words of each length. Find them all and that length is marked Done.
- 4
Bonus Words
Real words beyond the goal collect in the Bonus section at the bottom of the goal board. Tap it to see them, and tap again to fold it away.
- 5
How Hints Help
A hint starts from the letters you have already tapped. If they begin a word you still need, it offers the next two letters of it; if not, it offers the start of one of the shortest words left. The letters only move when you tap Apply.
The real screens.
Every picture on this page is the app itself, on a board from the game.
Where Forage Comes From
Rearranging letters into new words is very old. Anagrams are said to go back at least to the Greek poet Lycophron, in the third century BC, and they stayed a learned pastime for centuries: King Louis XIII of France paid a Royal Anagrammatist, Thomas Billon, 1,200 livres a year.
Forage is a word-building game Dayzle made from the same idea. Where an anagram rearranges every letter into one new word, Forage asks for a set number of words at each length from one handful of letters, and the goal is worked out for each handful from the words it can actually make, so no length asks for more than three quarters of them.
How the Levels Differ
Easy: 5 letters, words of 3 letters or more, and 6 words to find — three of 3 letters and three longer. Medium: 6 letters, words of 3 or more, and 10 words — four of 3 letters, four of 4, and two of 5 or more.
Hard: 7 letters, words of 4 letters or more, and 17 words — eight of 4 letters, six of 5, two of 6 or more, and the one 7-letter word that uses every letter. Extra Hard: 8 letters and 31 words — fifteen of 4 letters, ten of 5, five of 6 or more, and the 8-letter word. These counts are targets: letters that can spell few long words ask for more shorter ones instead, and the total stays the same.
How a board gets harder.
Every letter is on screen from the start, so there is nothing hidden to reason about, and Forage's hints hand over letters instead of naming a technique: a hint offers the next two letters of a word you still need, starting from the letters you have already tapped. What makes a board harder is the size of the search. Each extra letter multiplies the words it could spell, Hard and Extra Hard stop accepting 3-letter words, and the goal grows from 6 words on Easy to 31 on Extra Hard, including one that uses all 8 letters.
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Today's five are waiting.
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