Scoring

Word Duel Scoring

Play Word Duel in your browser — no app required. Every solved puzzle earns points. Fewer guesses and faster solves score higher. Unsolved puzzles earn 0 points.

Raw Score

Base Points (by difficulty)

Attempt Multiplier

Fewer guesses → higher multiplier (0.4 – 1.0). Uses a curve exponent of 0.7 so early guesses are rewarded more.

Time Multiplier

Faster than the ideal time → up to 2.5×. Slower → down to 0.5×.

Leaderboard Score

The raw score is multiplied by 18× for the leaderboard. Winning someone else's challenge adds a small flat bonus by difficulty: Easy +100, Medium +200, Hard +300 War Rank points (before solveBonus − time on the server).

Examples

Word Blitz Scoring

Play Word Blitz in your browser or in the app. Each run is 3 minutes on a 4×4 letter grid that scrambles every 30 seconds. Each valid word scores Scrabble tile values plus a length bonus (longer words score more). Streak multipliers, the 2× bonus zone (the last 5 seconds before each scramble), and the Double power-up can all boost per-word points.

Length Bonus

Streak Multiplier

Every 5 valid words in a row adds +1× to your multiplier. One invalid word resets the streak count.

Words-Found Bonus

Added once at the end of your run based on total valid words found.

Final Score

The ×10 multiplier converts your raw game score into War Rank points. What you see on leaderboards is the stored War Rank points for each submitted game.

Friend challenges: If you load someone else's challenge and your War Rank for the run beats theirs, a small flat bonus is added after that multiplier: Standard +300, Turbo +100. No bonus for beating your own shared challenge.

Tower Defense Scoring

Tower Defense is played in the mobile app. Each run (from start to defeat or victory) earns points based on how far you get and how much XP you bank.

Time bonus: +2 points per minute survived, capped at 50.

Your career TD score on the leaderboard is the sum of all your runs. Your best run is your single highest-scoring run.

For a deep dive on Tower Defense mechanics, units, enemies, and strategies, see the Tower Defense Wiki.

Riddler AI Scoring

Riddler AI is played in the mobile app. Each game presents 15 AI-generated riddles across 5 difficulty tiers. Answer correctly before the 60-second timer runs out. You have 3 lives — lose all three and the game ends early.

Per-Riddle Score

Wrong or timed-out riddles score 0. The BASE_POINTS value is 500.

Tier Multipliers

Perfect Game Bonus

If you solve all 15 riddles and still have all 3 lives remaining, your total score is doubled.

Examples

Your career Riddler AI score on the leaderboard is the sum of all completed games. Your best single game and best average are tracked separately.

Overall War Rank

Your overall War Rank on the global leaderboard combines Tower Defense, Word Duel, Word Blitz, and Riddler AI career points plus an entropy-based balance bonus that rewards spreading play across games.

Balance Bonus

The balance bonus uses Shannon entropy across all four games. A player who earns points in more games gets a bigger bonus than a one-game specialist.

What does this mean in practice?

The entropy calculation scales automatically as more games are added.

Leaderboard Views

• Overall — War Rank (TD + Duel + Word Blitz + balance bonus). One entry per player.
• Tower Defense – Career — Cumulative TD points from all runs. One entry per player.
• Tower Defense – Best Run — Single highest-scoring TD run.
• Tower Defense – Best Avg Run — Average TD points per run (career TD points ÷ TD runs). Level/wave on the row are your real per-run averages. Eligibility for this tab uses a minimum run count (see below).
• Word Duel – Career — Cumulative Duel points from all solves. One entry per player.
• Word Duel – Best Solve — Single highest-scoring solve.
• Word Duel – Best Avg Solve — Average Duel points per puzzle attempt (career Duel points ÷ attempts). Eligibility uses a minimum attempt count (see below).
• Word Blitz – Career — Cumulative War Rank points from all submitted games. One entry per player.
• Word Blitz – Best Game — Single highest-scoring Blitz run.
• Word Blitz – Best Avg Game — Average Blitz points per game (career Blitz points ÷ games). Eligibility uses a minimum game count (see below).

Best average leaderboards (eligibility)

The number you see is always a normal average: career points in that mode ÷ number of runs or attempts (same denominator Word Duel has always used: every recorded attempt, including unsolved tries that add 0 to your career total). To keep one lucky session from dominating, you only appear on the best-average tab if you have at least a minimum amount of activity in that mode, derived from how much people play overall.

Let avgPlaysPerActivePlayer = (total runs or attempts in that mode) ÷ (distinct players with at least one run or attempt). The minimum required is:

minPlaysFloor (currently 2) and the divisor 3 live in packages/shared/src/config/leaderboard-average-eligibility.json as avgPlaysPerPlayerDivisor and minPlaysFloor. The file also includes a short description of the rule. Ties on average favor whoever has more games or attempts.

To qualify for the best-average leaderboard in a mode: playsOrRuns >= max(minPlaysFloor, floor(avgPlaysPerActivePlayer / avgPlaysPerPlayerDivisor)). Here avgPlaysPerActivePlayer = (total runs or attempts in that mode) / (distinct players with at least one run or attempt). Averages shown on the board are always honest: career points in that mode divided by that same play count. minPlaysFloor prevents the dynamic part from dropping to 0 when the player base is small (which would let single-play users onto the board).

Challenges & Social Scoring

Both Word Duel and Word Blitz support challenge sharing.

Word Duel Challenges

When you solve a Word Duel puzzle, share a challenge code with a friend. If your friend solves the same puzzle, scores are compared:

• Fewer guesses wins.
• If same guesses, faster time wins.
• If you win someone else’s challenge, you earn a small flat War Rank bonus on that solve (after raw×multiplier, before the usual solveBonus − time adjustment): Easy +100, Medium +200, Hard +300.

Word Blitz Challenges

After completing a Word Blitz run, you can share a challenge link. Your friend plays the exact same sequence of boards you had and tries to beat your War Rank score for that run. If they beat your score (and it isn’t their own challenge), they get a small flat War Rank bonus after all in-run scoring and the mode multiplier: Turbo +100, Standard +300.