No. Every swap counts, so plan each one before you make it. Swapping the same two tiles back costs a second swap.

Can a grid have two answers?

Not here. Our software checks every grid before it goes live and throws out any grid whose letters could spell a second set of words.

What happens if I run out of swaps?

The game ends and you get no stars. You can open the hints page for that grid to see the answer and the best route.

Can I move a green tile?

No. Green tiles are locked because they are already right. Every swap must use two tiles that are not green.

How to play Waffle

Every letter you need is already on the board. Your job is to swap them into the right spots. You get 15 swaps, and a perfect solve takes 10. This page covers the rules, the colour clues, how stars work and a real grid solved one swap at a time.

What are the rules?

The board is a 5×5 grid. Three words run across (rows 1, 3 and 5) and three run down (columns 1, 3 and 5).
All 21 letters start on the board in a mixed up order. No letters are added or taken away.
Pick any two tiles to swap them. The colours update after each swap.
Fix all six words in 15 swaps or fewer to win. Every grid can be solved in 10.
Each swap you have left at the end earns a star, up to five.

On a phone, tap one tile and then another to swap them. You can also drag one tile onto another. On a computer you can click, or use Tab and Enter to play with the keyboard.

What do the tile colours mean?

The colours are your only clues, so it pays to know them well.

Green: the right letter in the right spot. Green tiles cannot move.
Yellow: the letter belongs in a word that runs through this tile, but in another spot.
Grey: no word through this tile needs this letter. It belongs in a different word.

FSSUYLTOAWARDTRESWELL

One swap from solved. The U and S in FUSSY have traded places. Both belong in that word, so both are yellow.

FUSSYLTOAWARDTRESWELL

Solved. Across: FUSSY, AWARD, SWELL. Down: FLATS, STARE, YODEL.

What does a yellow corner tile mean?

A corner tile sits in two words, one across and one down. Yellow there means at least one of those two words needs the letter in another spot. It does not tell you which one. The same goes for all nine tiles where two words cross: the four corners, the middle of each edge and the centre.

To work out which word wants the letter, look at the other tiles in both words. If one word already has that letter in green, the yellow usually points to the other word.

What happens when a word has the same letter twice?

Yellows follow letter counts. Say a word needs one more E and two wrong Es sit in it. Only the first one, reading left to right or top to bottom, turns yellow. The other shows grey, unless the word crossing it also needs an E.

This comes up a lot. In 93% of our 213 daily grids, at least one word uses the same letter twice, as in STEEP, SWELL or FUSSY. So a grey tile does not always mean "this letter is not in the word". It can mean "this word already has enough of this letter in the right places or marked yellow".

How are stars scored?

You earn one star for every swap you still have when the grid is solved.

Swaps used	Swaps left	Stars
10	5	⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
11	4	⭐⭐⭐⭐
12	3	⭐⭐⭐
13	2	⭐⭐
14	1	⭐
15	0	0, but solved
Not solved in 15	0	0, game over

Watch a real grid get solved in 10 swaps

This is Waffle #40, solved in the fewest possible swaps. Each board shows the grid right after the swap. The answer is STEEP, ORGAN and PITCH across, with STOMP, EIGHT and PINCH down.

TTONMITCEEGARPCSPHIHI

Start. Four tiles are green. Row 3 reads blank, blank, G, A, blank, and the board has a spare O, R and N, so that word is ORGAN. The bottom row starts with P and has an I, T, C and H on the board: PITCH. Name what you can before you touch a tile.

TTENMITCOEGARPCSPHIHI

Swap 1: row 1, column 3 with row 3, column 1. The O at the top is grey, so neither word through it needs an O. ORGAN needs an O right where a grey E sits, and the top row needs an E in the middle. One swap puts both letters home.

TTENPITCOEGARMCSPHIHI

Swap 2: row 1, column 5 with row 4, column 1. The M in the top right corner is grey. The left column needs an M in row 4, where a P sits, and the top row ends in P. Trade them and both corners of the puzzle are settled.

TTENPTICOEGARMCSPHIHI

Swap 3: row 2, column 1 with row 2, column 3. Row 2 has its T and I the wrong way round. The left column (STOMP) needs T second, and the middle column (EIGHT) needs I second. Swap the pair.

TTENPTICOEGARMHSPHICI

Swap 4: row 4, column 3 with row 5, column 4. EIGHT needs an H in row 4, and PITCH needs a C in column 4. The C and the H are in each other's spots, so one swap fixes both.

TTENPTICOEGARMHSPIICH

Swap 5: row 5, column 2 with row 5, column 5. The bottom row now reads P, H, I, C, I. PITCH needs its I second and its H last. Another pair swap.

STENPTICOEGARMHTPIICH

Swap 6: row 1, column 1 with row 4, column 5. STEEP needs an S in the top left, and the only S sits in column 5. Only the S lands this time. Not every swap can fix two tiles, and that is fine: a perfect solve here has three swaps like this.

STEEPTICONGARMHTPIICH

Swap 7: row 1, column 4 with row 3, column 2. The top row needs a second E, and there is a spare E in row 3. The N it trades with is not home yet. It shows yellow, because ORGAN needs an N, just in a different spot.

STEEPTICORGANMHTPIICH

Swap 8: row 3, column 2 with row 3, column 5. Row 3 reads O, N, G, A, R. Swap the N and the R to spell ORGAN. Both turn green.

STEEPTITORGANMHCPIICH

Swap 9: row 2, column 5 with row 4, column 5. The right column reads P, C, N, T, H. PINCH needs its C in row 4. The C lands, and the T moves up to wait in row 2.

STEEPTIIORGANMHCPITCH

Swap 10: row 2, column 5 with row 5, column 3. The last two wrong tiles trade places. The I finishes PINCH, and the T finishes both EIGHT and PITCH. Ten swaps, five stars.

Seven of those ten swaps fixed two tiles at once. That is the pattern behind almost every five star solve. Across all our grids, a perfect solve has about 5.7 swaps like that on average.

Five habits that lead to a perfect solve

Name the words before you swap. Greens give you the outline of each word. Try to name all six first.
Fix the crossing tiles early. Each one sits in two words. One right letter helps both.
Look for pairs. Tile A may hold the letter tile B needs, while B holds the letter A needs. One swap makes both green, so do those first.
Count the letters. Each letter shows up on the board exactly as often as it does in the answer. Once both Ls are placed, no other tile can be an L.
Do not swap to test an idea. A swap that fixes nothing costs you a star. Think it through first.

Mistakes that cost stars

Swapping a letter into a spot that is only nearly right. If a tile only moves from grey to yellow, the swap did not finish anything. You will need another swap for that tile later.
Chasing one word to the end. Finishing the top row first can leave you short of letters in the columns. Plan the whole grid, then swap.
Reading a grey tile as "not in this word" when the word has a repeated letter. Check the letter count before you move it away.
Forgetting the crossing word. A letter can look perfect for the row and be wrong for the column that crosses it.

What the numbers say about our grids

We track every daily grid we publish. Here is what 213 of them show:

Grids so far: 213, with 1,278 words in total.
Tiles that start green: 5.3 on average out of 21, and never fewer than 4 or more than 7.
Most used letters: E (13.4%), A (9.7%), R (8.1%), O (7.3%), I (7%). Vowels make up 41.4% of all letters.
Most common word endings: ER (7.2%), ED (5.4%), SE (2.6%), GE (2.4%), AL (2.4%), EL (2.3%).
Grids with a letter used twice in the same word: 93%.
Swaps that fix two tiles at once in a perfect 10 swap solve: 5.7 on average.

Two things stand out. E is by far the most common letter, so when you are unsure where a letter goes, E is a good first guess. And ER and ED are the top endings, so check those first when a word ends in a yellow or grey pair.

Waffle words to know

Swap: trading the places of two tiles. It is the only move in the game.
Crossing tile: a tile shared by an across word and a down word. There are nine on the 5×5 grid.
Pair swap: a swap where both tiles turn green.
Perfect solve: finishing in the fewest swaps possible, 10 here, which earns five stars.
Streak: how many daily grids in a row you have solved.

How is Waffle different from Wordle?

Both games use green and yellow tiles, but the puzzle is not the same. Wordle hides a word, and you guess to find its letters. Waffle hides nothing. You see every letter from the first second, and the whole puzzle is about where each one goes.

Where to play next

Try today's grid, move up to the 7×7 Deluxe, or practise with no limit in Unlimited. If you get stuck, every grid has its own hints page.