Lexathon is a word game built around one familiar idea — guess the hidden five-letter word — wrapped in four very different ways to play. Every mode shares the same core: type a five-letter word, press Enter, and the tiles tell you how close you were.
You get five guesses per word. After each guess, every letter is colour-coded:
Guesses must be real words from the dictionary. Solving faster is worth dramatically more:
| Solved on guess | 1st | 2nd | 3rd | 4th | 5th |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Points | 500 | 250 | 150 | 50 | 10 |
That curve is steep on purpose. A first-guess solve is worth fifty times a fifth-guess one, so the difference between good players isn't whether they solve words — it's how early.
The blue and amber pair is already chosen to stay distinct across the common forms of colour vision deficiency. If it does not work for you, Menu → Settings → Colourblind Mode swaps it for the Okabe-Ito blue and orange.
One word after another, for as long as you can keep going. There's no timer and no round limit; a run ends when you decide it ends, or when you lose it.
You start each run with one Continue. Miss a word while you still have it, and you spend the Continue and carry on with your score intact. Miss a second word with no Continue left and the run is over — and you lose everything you'd built up in it.
This is the decision the whole mode turns on. Bank your score at any time to lock it in permanently: it's added to your Wallet and your Career Bank, and it can never be taken away. Keep playing and every word is another chance to add 500 points — or to lose the lot.
There's no correct answer, which is the point. A 4,000-point run you banked beats a 12,000-point run you didn't.
Two players, seven minutes, the same list of words in the same order. Scoring matches Stakes, with one change: missing a word costs 50 points instead of ending your run. You're never knocked out, so the pressure is about pace rather than survival.
You get two skips per match. A skip abandons the current word and moves you to the next one with no penalty — no points gained, but no 50 lost either. They exist so a word you simply cannot see doesn't quietly drain the clock while your opponent pulls away. Spend them deliberately: two is not many across seven minutes.
Level at the buzzer and the match goes to Sudden Death: one shared secret word, five guesses each, first to solve it wins. If neither of you gets it, the match is recorded as a genuine tie.
Matches from the public queue move your MMR. Private rooms — the ones you create with a room code or an invite link — don't, so you can play friends without risking your rank. Private rooms also offer a one-tap Share Invite link and a Rematch button.
Leaving a match mid-game forfeits it and your opponent is awarded the win.
One puzzle a day, identical for everyone: seven words, one attempt. It resets at midnight Eastern.
There is no clock, and no need to finish in one sitting — stop whenever you like and pick up on the same word later the same day.
Scoring is the same 500/250/150/50/10, and you play all seven words whatever happens. Run out of guesses on one and the answer is revealed, you score nothing for it, and the next word starts. Everyone sees the same ten, so the board compares like with like. Getting all ten is genuinely hard.
Afterwards you can share your result as a spoiler-free bar — one mark per word in play order, 🟩 solved or ❌ missed — plus your score and your average guesses. Equal scores are separated by who solved more words. The Daily Puzzle leaderboard only ever shows today's attempts, so it resets alongside the puzzle.
The same seven-minute race as Clash, opened up to three to six players at once. You also get two skips here.
There's no early finish — no 1,000-point knockout. It runs the full clock and the highest score wins. Payouts scale with where you place rather than being all-or-nothing:
| Players | 1st | 2nd | 3rd | 4th | 5th | 6th |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3 | 1,000 | 500 | 0 | — | — | — |
| 4 | 1,000 | 500 | 200 | 0 | — | — |
| 5 | 1,000 | 500 | 200 | 100 | 0 | — |
| 6 | 1,000 | 500 | 200 | 100 | 50 | 0 |
A bigger room only ever adds places underneath — first through fourth pay the same whether there are four of you or six — and only last place earns nothing.
Leaving early doesn't end the match for everyone else — it carries on without you. You're locked into the worst placement still available, and the earlier you leave the worse that placement is, so quitting a match you're losing costs you more than finishing it.
Clash and FFA keep separate ratings. Public 1v1 matches move your Clash MMR; public Free-For-All matches move your FFA rating. Both start at 1,000 and use the same tiers below, so you can sit in different ranks in the two modes. Private rooms are unranked either way.
| Rank | MMR |
|---|---|
| Bronze | Below 1,000 |
| Silver | 1,000 – 1,199 |
| Gold | 1,200 – 1,499 |
| Platinum | 1,500 – 1,799 |
| Sapphire | 1,800 – 2,099 |
| Ruby | 2,100 and above |
Rating changes are weighted by who you played: beating a higher-rated opponent moves you further than beating a lower-rated one. In FFA it's calculated against every other player in the match, so the size of the room matters — among evenly matched players, second of six is a clear gain, while second of three is a wash. You beat one player and lost to one; that's average.
Two separate numbers. Your Wallet is spendable currency for the Shop. Your Career Bank is your lifetime total and is never reduced by spending — it's what the All Time leaderboard ranks you on. Buying cosmetics costs you nothing in standing.
Titles, banners and name effects. All of it is cosmetic — none of it affects scoring, difficulty, or matchmaking. A few items are seasonal and only purchasable inside their window, but once bought they're yours permanently.
Three Daily challenges rotate every day, and Career challenges are one-time milestones. Both pay points into your Wallet, and both are claimed manually from the Challenges menu — nothing expires unclaimed mid-session, but dailies do reset.
You can play immediately without signing up. The catch is that a guest profile lives only in that one browser: clear your data or switch device and it's gone, with no way to recover it. Linking a Google account or an email address keeps everything — wallet, rank, cosmetics, stats — and lets you play from anywhere. Linking preserves the progress you've already made; it doesn't start you over.
Ready to play? Start a game. If you want to score better, the strategy guide covers opening words and mode-specific tactics.
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