Hexwords

Find words in the letters to build a path between your sides of the board. An implementation of Oliver Roeder’s Hexwords puzzle in the Financial Times, a word-version of the game Hex by Piet Hein and John Nash.

As Sylvia Nasar reports in A Beautiful Mind, Nash invented the game independently in the spring of 1949, and it was soon being played all over Princeton’s Fine Hall common room. They used Go stones, on a board built by fellow graduate student David Gale.

Play online

Enter the same phrase as your friend to meet in the same game. Here’s a suggestion:

Play on this device

Two players take turns on the same device.

Play the computer

Play on your own against the computer.

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How to play

  1. Blue tries to connect the top and bottom edges; Red connects left and right. Colours and the first turn are assigned at random.
  2. On your turn, tap or drag a trail of touching hexagons, bending any way you like, so the letters spell a real word. Playing it captures those hexagons in your colour.
  3. Words may only use empty hexagons, and each hexagon once. Your hexagons link up wherever they touch.
  4. If you’re stuck then you can pass. In timed games, running out of time passes for you. If both players pass one after another, or both agree to a draw, then the game ends in a draw. The first player to link their two sides of the board wins.

A quick example

1. Blue opens with TOE, reaching from the top edge to within one row of the bottom.
2. Red replies with RAN, building a wall out from the left edge. Captured hexagons can’t be spelled through.
3. Blue plays IS, which touches the E of TOE. Top and bottom are linked, so Blue wins.

A finished game

A full 13 × 13 game, played out word by word. Blue linked top to bottom in 27 words, opening with MINIMAX.