How to play
A snowman stands in the late-winter sun in front of a red cabin, and you have to guess the hidden word before the sun melts him. The board shows how long the word is as a row of empty spaces, and its theme above it.
Guess one letter at a time by typing or tapping the on-screen keyboard. A right letter appears in every place it is in. A wrong letter lifts the sun higher and melts a piece of the snowman: first his carrot nose droops, then his bucket slides askew, his stick arms drop into the snow and his head sinks, until after the sixth miss all that is left is a smiling heap of slush. A letter you have already tried costs nothing.
When you know the word, press Guess the word and type it all. A right guess earns extra points for every letter that was still hidden, but a wrong one melts two pieces at once.
After a solved word, fresh snow falls on the yard, the snowman is patted back together and the next word begins. The game goes on until the snowman melts. Choose a theme at the start: Cabin, Forest, Winter, Christmas or All themes. The first words are familiar ones, and the longer your streak lasts, the rarer the words you may meet.
The yard is in Finland: the red cabin, the bullfinches at the feeder and the white mountain hare that hops by now and then all belong to a Finnish late winter.
Friend’s word
In Friend’s word, two players play on the same device. One types a word for the other to guess, and then you switch. While you type, the letters show as snowflakes, and holding the eye button shows them for as long as you hold it. Each of you guesses three words, and the one with more points wins.
Points
A solved word earns 20 points, plus 10 points for every piece of the snowman still standing. If you solve the word with the Guess the word button, you get 5 points for every letter that was still hidden. Your streak adds more: each word already solved in the same game brings 5 extra points, up to 50. The game’s score is the sum of all its words.
If the snowman melts, you can build a new one with tokens on the game page once per game. Your points and streak carry on with a new word.
Tips
- Start with common letters. English words are full of E, T, A, O, I, N, S, R and H.
- Think about the theme and the length: when you know the word is from the forest and has six letters, there aren’t many choices.
- Long words are often compounds with a familiar part, such as snow, fire or star.
- Guess the whole word only when you are sure: the hidden letters bring extra points, but a wrong guess costs two pieces.
