Crossclimb rules
Crossclimb is a word ladder puzzle where seven five-letter words stack up, each rung changing a single letter. The rules read in a minute and apply to every puzzle, in progression mode as well as the daily challenge.
Crossclimb in 60 seconds
A Crossclimb puzzle hides a ladder of seven five-letter words. You start by solving five clues to find the middle words, then you reorder them so each pair of neighbours differs by a single letter. Once that ladder is valid, a final clue describes the two end words, top and bottom, each one letter from its neighbour: you guess them to finish. The score starts at 1000 points and loses 100 with every mistake, down to a floor of 200.
Step 1: solve the five clues
The game opens on five clues, each with an input, shown in a deliberately mixed order. Each clue describes one five-letter word, and only one. You do not have to solve them in the order displayed: start with the ones you are sure of, leave the others for later. The check is strict: a close but not exact word, off by one letter for instance, is refused, because everything that follows rests on differences of exactly one letter.
Step 2: build the ladder
Once the five words are found, they appear stacked, but rarely in the right order. Using the up and down buttons, you rearrange them so that each pair of neighbouring words differs by a single letter, from the first rung to the last. As long as one pair of neighbours differs by two letters or more, the ladder stays incomplete. This is the logical heart of the game: finding the one order where every step from a rung to the next changes exactly one letter.
Step 3: guess the two ends
When the middle ladder is correctly ordered, a final clue is revealed. It describes the two missing words, the one that tops the ladder and the one that closes it at the bottom. Each sits one letter away from the rung it touches: the top word is one letter from the first word you placed, the bottom one one letter from the last. You type them in to complete all seven rungs and solve the puzzle.
The scoring
The score does not depend on the time spent, but on the number of mistakes made. Each puzzle starts with a stock of 1000 points, cut by 100 with every misstep.
| Number of mistakes | Score kept |
|---|---|
| 0 mistakes | 1000 pts |
| 1 mistake | 900 pts |
| 2 mistakes | 800 pts |
| 3 mistakes | 700 pts |
| 8 mistakes or more | 200 pts |
Every mistake costs 100 points, down to that floor of 200: from eight mistakes onward, the score stays fixed at 200 points, no matter how many further mistakes follow. A hard puzzle is therefore always rewarded. But aiming for a clean solve, at 1000 points, remains the goal of regular players.
If a word blocks you, every clue, an unsolved card as well as an end, carries a Hint button that reveals the next letter of the word, in order. Each revealed letter costs 100 points, like a mistake, and once every letter is revealed the word is validated automatically: you can therefore always finish a ladder, even when stuck. For Premium members, the hint is free and takes away no points.
A concrete example
Take a real ladder from our bank, rated easy. Here is its full solution, top to bottom. The five middle rungs each carry a clue to solve; the two rungs in bold, at the very top and very bottom, are the ends guessed at the end.
Follow the ladder top to bottom: each word changes by only one letter from the one above. In the real game, you would first have typed the five middle words from their shuffled clues, then reordered them into this sequence, before a final clue had you guess the two bold words at the ends. It is this double logic, of vocabulary and arrangement, that gives Crossclimb all its flavour.
Frequently asked questions
How many points does a Crossclimb puzzle score?
Each puzzle starts at 1000 points. Every mistake costs 100 points, down to a floor of 200. A perfect ladder, with no wrong word and no wrong end, keeps the full 1000 points.
What counts as a mistake?
Two things cost you 100 points each: typing a word that does not match a clue, and guessing a wrong word for one of the two ends. Reordering the ladder itself is always free, however many moves it takes. Reading carefully before validating an answer is how you protect your score.
Do I have to find the words in order?
No. The five clues appear in a mixed order, so you solve them in any order you like. Ordering only matters in the second step, when you reorder the words into a ladder where each neighbour is one letter apart.
Are near-misses accepted, like in some word games?
No. Crossclimb uses a strict check: a word one letter away from the answer is a different word and is refused. That is deliberate, since the whole ladder is built on single-letter differences, so each rung must be exactly right.