Alpha Rain

What is Alpha Rain?

Alpha Rain is a falling letters word game. The well is 7 columns wide and 9 tiles tall. A small cloud floats above it and drops one letter at a time, and you can see which column it's about to rain on because the cloud drifts over it first.

You spell words by linking letters that touch, up, down, sideways or diagonally. Spell a real word of 3 or more letters and those tiles pop, and everything above them falls down to fill the gap. If a letter lands on a column that's already full, the run is over.

It's free and plays in your browser on a phone, tablet or computer. No download, no account needed to play.

How to play

• Start a run with Play (endless) or Daily Downpour (today's shared letters).
• Find a word in the tiles. Each letter has to touch the one before it, and you can't use the same tile twice.
• Spell it and the tiles clear. Longer words score far more.
• Every 20 seconds the rain level goes up (Rain 1, Rain 2 and so on) and letters fall faster.
• The run ends when a letter drops onto a column that's already 9 tiles high.

The Q tile reads as Qu, so QUIT only needs three tiles. Your very first run starts with RAIN sitting on the bottom row so you can see how it works.

Controls on phone and computer

Phone and tablet

Swipe across touching tiles and lift your finger to submit. Slide back onto the previous tile to undo a letter. If you'd rather tap, tap the tiles one at a time, then tap the last letter again to send the word.

Computer

You can drag with the mouse, or just type. As you type, the game finds a matching path of tiles on the board and lights it up. If no path exists the letter is refused. Enter submits, Backspace removes a letter, Space or ? uses a hint and Esc pauses.

How scoring works

Each letter has a value, from 1 point for common letters like E, A and S up to 8 for Q and Z. A word's score is the sum of its letter values, times a length multiplier, times 10, times your current combo.

So RAIN (1+1+1+1) is worth 4 x 1.5 x 10 = 60 points, while a 6 letter word with the same kind of letters jumps to 180 or more. Long words are where the big numbers live.

Combos

Spell another word within 5 seconds of the last one and your combo climbs by 0.25, up to x3. The thin bar under the word pill shows how long you have left. Wait too long and it drops back to x1.

Bomb tiles and wild tiles

Long words leave something behind. The last tile of the word stays on the board and changes into a special tile:

• 5 letter word: the last tile becomes a bomb. Use it in a later word and it also clears every tile around it, and each extra tile it wipes out adds points. A bomb that catches another bomb sets that one off too.
• 6 letters or more: the last tile becomes a wild tile (a star). It can stand in for any letter. It scores 0 itself, but it makes long words much easier to find.

Long words also get a little cheer on screen: Splash for 5 letters, Downpour for 6 and Cloudburst for 7 or more.

Hints

You start each run with 1 hint. Tap the hint button and the game highlights a word for 4 seconds, usually one close to 5 letters. You earn another hint every 8 words, or straight away for any word of 6 letters or more. You can hold up to 3.

Daily Downpour and leaderboards

Daily Downpour gives everyone the same letters falling in the same columns for the day (it resets at midnight UTC). Your best score for the day is kept, and playing on back to back days builds a streak shown with a little flame on the menu.

Endless runs and the daily each have a leaderboard. Sign in if you want your scores posted there. After a run you can share a short text result with your score, word count and longest word.

Skies to unlock

Every word you spell, in any mode, counts toward new skies for the well. Pick the one you like from Skies on the menu.

Tips and strategy

• Watch the cloud. It moves over the column it's about to fill. If that column is already tall, clear something in it now.
• Tall columns kill runs, not full wells. A well that's half full is fine. A single column at 8 is an emergency. Spend short words to knock down the tallest stack.
• Don't empty the well in a panic. When there are only a few tiles left, letters pour in much faster to fill it back up. A comfy middle layer of tiles gives you more words to choose from.
• Save short words for emergencies, hunt long ones when it's calm. A 6 letter word is worth roughly six 3 letter words and it hands you a wild tile.
• Think about the bomb before you make it. The bomb lands where your word ends. Finish a 5 letter word in a crowded spot and the blast later will clear a lot more.
• Plurals and endings are free length. If you see CLOUD and there's an S nearby, CLOUDS is worth a lot more and gives you a wild tile.
• Keep the combo going with quick small words between bigger finds, then cash in a long word while you're at x2 or higher.

If you enjoy the race against falling words, try Letter Storm, where you type words before storm clouds reach a lighthouse. For a calmer letter grid, Spell Duel turns the same idea into turn based monster battles.

Questions