Petal Words

What is Petal Words?

Petal Words is a word connect puzzle. Each level gives you a flower with one letter on every petal, and a small crossword grid above it. You connect petals to spell words, and every word you find fills its row or column in the grid. Fill every square and the flower blooms.

Every level is built from one base word. All the letters on the flower come from that word, and the base word itself is always somewhere in the grid. So there's always one long answer that uses every petal. The shorter answers are smaller words hiding inside it.

It's free and runs in your browser on a phone, tablet or computer, with nothing to download. Your level, hints and garden progress are saved on your device, and a half-finished level picks up where you left it.

How to play

1. Press on a petal and slide to the next letter. A line follows your finger and the word builds up above the flower.
2. Changed your mind? Slide back onto the letter you just left and it comes off the end of the word.
3. Let go to send the word. It has to be at least 3 letters long.
4. If it's one of the grid words, its letters fly up into place. If it's a real word that isn't in the grid, it's a bonus word.
5. Fill every square to finish the level.

Words in the grid cross each other, so one find often fills a letter of the next. If every square of a word gets filled in by crossings and hints, the game counts that word as found for you.

The Shuffle button spins the petals into a new order. The letters don't change, only where they sit, and that's often enough to make a hidden word jump out.

Controls on phone and computer

Phone and tablet

Swipe from petal to petal. If swiping feels fiddly, tap one letter and lift your finger. That switches to tap mode: tap the rest of the letters in order, tap the last one again to remove it, and tap the flower's face in the middle to send the word.

Computer

Drag with the mouse, or just type. Each letter key picks a matching petal.

Bonus words, the dew jar and hints

Any real word you spell that isn't in the grid goes into the dew jar as a drop of dew. Five drops fill the jar and turn into one free hint. Tap the jar to see every bonus word you've found on the current level.

You start with 3 hints. A hint lights up one empty square, and it always picks from the word that's closest to finished, so it nudges you over the line instead of handing out a random letter. You also get a free hint as a gift every 5 levels you clear.

One thing worth knowing: when we build a grid, we skip a plural if the singular word is already a candidate. So if the grid has CART, it won't also have CARTS. The plural still counts as a bonus word, which makes plurals an easy way to fill the jar.

Levels, gardens and ranks

Levels get bigger slowly. The flower grows a petal and the grid adds words as you go.

Every 20 levels the scenery changes to a new garden. There are ten: Sunny Meadow, Rose Arbor, Lily Pond, Sunflower Field, Cherry Grove, Lavender Hills, Tulip Rows, Autumn Orchard, Moonlit Garden and Frost Garden. Moonlit Garden is the night one, with stars and fireflies instead of butterflies.

Your rank climbs with the number of levels you've cleared: Seed, Sprout (5), Bud (15), Bloom (30), Gardener (60), Florist (100), Botanist (150), Head Gardener (200) and Garden Legend (300). The Garden Book on the title screen shows your rank, total words, bonus words, daily streak and which gardens you've opened.

The Daily Bouquet and leaderboards

The Daily Bouquet is one puzzle that everyone gets on the same day, with a fresh one at midnight UTC. It's a 7 letter flower with 8 words in the grid, and it has a clock. Pausing stops the clock.

The lowest possible score is 50, so you always get something on the board. Finish the daily on back to back days to build a streak. If you sign in, your daily score and your level count go on the leaderboards, which you can open from the trophy on the results screen.

Tips and strategy

• Find the long word first. The base word uses every petal and it's always in the grid. Solving it fills a whole row and gives you crossing letters for almost everything else.
• Look at the grid, not just the flower. Count the squares in each empty word and note where it crosses a word you've already found. A 4 letter gap with a known second letter narrows things down fast.
• Shuffle when you're stuck. Seeing the letters in a new circle breaks the pattern your brain keeps repeating. It's free, so use it often.
• Save hints for the end. Bonus words keep topping you up, and a hint late in a level fills a square in an almost finished word, which can auto complete it.
• Try plurals and word endings. Adding S, ED or ER to a word you've found is the quickest way to fill the dew jar.
• Swap letter pairs. Many short answers are the same letters in a different order, like TEA, ATE and EAT. When you find one, try the others.

Questions