Word Chain

No. That is a spoken party game. In this Word Chain every word makes a pair with the word above it and the word below it, like rain and bow (rainbow) or bow and tie. You find the five hidden words in a column of seven.

A chain is seven words in a column. Every word makes a phrase or a joined-up word with the word above it and the word below it, like rain, bow, tie, break. The first and last words are shown and you find the five in between, one row at a time.

Two words count if they make a joined-up word (rain and bow make rainbow) or a phrase people really say (bow tie, tie break). Each chain has one intended answer per row, so if a word fits but is marked wrong, you will get another letter to steer you to the one we picked.

Any length from two to nine letters, and the game does not say. Every hidden row is nine open boxes until you find the word, then a solved word shows its real length and the spare boxes go grey.

If your guess is a real word that does not fit, the row shakes, you lose 5 points on that word, and one more letter is revealed. When only the last letter is left you are told, and you can always finish the word. A guess that is not a word at all costs nothing, and neither does the right word in the wrong form, like a plural.

Each of the five hidden words scores 20 with no wrong guesses, 15 with one, 10 with two, 5 with three and 0 after that, so a perfect chain is 100 points. The score never goes below zero.

Yes. Everyone gets the same chain each game day, and it changes early in the morning Sydney time. There is one ranked chain a day, so a fresh chain is only ever a day away.