How to play
Every CHAIN puzzle gives you two words — a start at the top and a goal at the bottom — with empty boxes between them. Your job is to fill the boxes so that every step follows the rule printed beside it.
Here is a complete easy puzzle. The start is TRAP, the goal is WARE, and two boxes sit in between:
TRAP → POST → WAR → WARE
TRAP to POST is a swap ends link: TRAP ends in P and starts with T, so the answer has to start with P and end with T. POST does. POST to WAR is a compound: POSTWAR is one word. WAR to WARE is one letter: add an E. That is the whole game.
There is no timer, no guess limit and no way to lose. A wrong word is refused and you try another. You can fill the boxes in any order you like, and working backwards from the goal is often easier than working forwards from the start.
The six rules
Compound
The two words push together into a single word.
SUN + FLOWER → sunflower
TREE + HOUSE → treehouse
Order matters here, and the board always reads top to bottom: the word above the link is the first half. A compound has to close up into one word, so POST OFFICE and HIGH SCHOOL do not count — those stay two words however naturally they go together.
Swap ends
The answer starts with the letter this word ended on, and ends with the letter it started on.
WORD → draw
TABLE → eat
WORD starts with W and ends with D, so its partner starts with D and ends with W. Length is free — TABLE is five letters and EAT is three. The rule works the same read either way, so if a word fits below it also fits above.
Rhyme
The two words rhyme.
BALL / CALL
Rhyme is about sound, not spelling. DAY and BOUQUET rhyme; COUGH and BOUGH do not. The game reads its pronunciations from a public phonetic dictionary rather than matching letters, so LIGHT and POLITE count.
One letter
Add or remove exactly one letter to make a new word.
CAT / CHAT
SCALE / SALE
Add or remove — never swap. CHANGE and CHANCE are the same length, so they are out. Plain plurals and past tenses are out too: CAT to CATS is not a puzzle. NOT to NOTE and PIN to PINE are, so the refusal is narrow.
Anagram
The same letters, rearranged.
HORSE / SHORE
Every letter has to be used exactly once. This rule almost always has a single answer, which makes it a foothold rather than an obstacle: once you have the word on one side, the other side is settled.
Homophone
A different word that sounds the same.
MADE / MAID
Like anagram, this usually has exactly one answer, so it is the friendliest link on any board once one of its two words is known.
Easy, medium and hard
Three puzzles a day, and the difference between them is not just length. The rules are grouped by what they ask of you.
Compound asks you to know something. There is no procedure that produces CLIPBOARD; either it occurs to you or it does not. Swap ends and rhyme ask you to search — you have a method and a bounded space to run it over. Anagram, homophone and one letter mostly hand you the answer once a neighbour is known.
Easy is three links with at most one thing you have to know. Medium is four. Hard is five, with up to two. Every board, at every level, carries exactly one of the easy links, so there is always somewhere to start.
Things worth knowing
Work from both ends. Both anchors are printed, and slots fill in any order. When one end looks hopeless, the other usually is not.
Find the one-answer link first. If a board has an anagram or a homophone, solving the word next to it settles two boxes at once.
Nothing is timed and nothing is lost. Wrong words are simply not accepted. You can close the tab and come back — your progress is saved in your own browser.
The share card gives nothing away. It shows which rules you solved as coloured squares, never the words. Posting your result cannot spoil the puzzle for anyone.
New puzzles arrive at midnight, wherever you are.