Lexicrab tips: how to save swaps

In Lexicrab your score is the number of swaps you did not use. Solving the grid is usually possible; solving it with five swaps to spare takes a plan. If you have not played yet, read how to play Lexicrab first.

1. Think before the first swap

Nothing is timed by default, so look at the whole board before you touch it. Try to name at least one of the four words. Green tiles are fixed points, and one known word tells you two letters of the words that cross it.

2. Hunt for swaps that fix two tiles

Every swap moves two letters. The best swap puts both of them on their final tile. The shortest solve is built almost entirely from such swaps, and you only have five to spare.

Before you swap, ask where the letter you are about to push away needs to go. If tile A holds the letter that belongs on tile B, and tile B holds the letter that belongs on tile A, swap them and you have fixed two tiles for the price of one.

3. Follow the chain

Often no perfect pair exists. Then letters form a loop: A belongs on B, B's letter belongs on C, and C's letter belongs on A. A loop of three takes two swaps and a loop of four takes three. Work through one loop at a time and finish it, instead of starting several and leaving stray letters everywhere.

4. Read gray as carefully as green

A gray tile tells you its letter is not used by any word through that tile. On a tile that belongs to one word, that letter must go to one of the other words. That narrows the search more than a yellow tile does.

5. Use the four crossings

The four crossing tiles each belong to two words, so getting one right helps twice. They are also the trickiest to read: a crossing tile shows yellow if its letter belongs to either word. Check both before you decide where it goes.

6. Do not trust yellow to count letters

Yellow means the word uses that letter somewhere. It can stay yellow even after every copy of the letter in that word is in place. If a word looks complete apart from one stubborn yellow tile, that tile's letter probably belongs to a different word.

7. Mind the double letters

When a word contains the same letter twice, either copy can fill either spot. Swapping two tiles that hold the same letter is refused and costs nothing, so you cannot waste a swap that way, but you can waste one by fetching a far-away copy when a nearer one would do.

8. Know what a hint is worth

The theme hint costs one swap, which is one star. It is worth it when you cannot name a single word and the theme would unlock two or three of them. It is not worth it when you already know the words and are only arranging letters.

In theme packs the hint is Reveal a letter, which moves one wrong tile home for one swap. That is never worse than a swap you would have made anyway, so use it when you are unsure rather than guessing.

Play Lexicrab and try it, or see more from One Thumb Games.