Word Labyrinth — Word Ladder Game
Change one letter at a time to reach the target word.
Word Labyrinth is a free online word ladder puzzle game (also known as a doublet, word chain, word morph, or simply the change-one-letter game). You are given a start word and a target word — both the same length — and your task is to transform the start word into the target word by changing exactly one letter at each step. Every intermediate word must be a valid English word.
Quick Example
Transform COLD into WARM:
COLD → CORD → WORD → WARD → WARM
Each step changes exactly one letter, and every word in the chain is a real English word. The shortest possible chain is the optimal solution.
How to Play
- You are shown a start word and a target word.
- Change exactly one letter in the current word to form a new valid English word.
- Repeat until you reach the target word.
- The fewer steps you take, the higher your score. The minimum number of steps is the optimal path computed in advance.
- Need help? Use a hint — it reveals the next correct letter in an optimal solution.
A Brief History of the Word Ladder
The word ladder was invented by Lewis Carroll (Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, the author of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland) on Christmas Day in 1877. He called it Doublets and the puzzle was published as a regular column in Vanity Fair magazine starting in March 1879. Carroll's classic example was transforming HEAD into TAIL: HEAD → HEAL → TEAL → TELL → TALL → TAIL. Word ladders have appeared in newspapers and puzzle books ever since — a small, elegant English-language tradition that Word Labyrinth carries forward in daily form.
Game Modes
- Daily Ranked Ladder — 5 daily puzzles, the same for all players. Climb the global leaderboard.
- Expert Mode — unlimited word ladder puzzles for word masters who finished the daily ladder and want more.
- Practice / Custom — choose your own word lengths and difficulty. No timer, no pressure.
- Streaks — finish all 5 daily puzzles to extend your streak. Rewards at 3, 7, 14, 30, 60, 100 and 365 days.
Why Play Word Ladder Puzzles?
- Vocabulary — you discover and recall words you might not normally use.
- Pattern recognition — your brain learns which letter swaps lead to dead ends and which open up new paths.
- Brain training — word ladders combine visual recognition, lexical access, and short-horizon planning.
- Quick to learn, deep to master — the rules fit in one sentence; the optimal strategy is non-trivial.
Word Labyrinth vs Wordle vs Weaver
Wordle is a deduction puzzle: you guess a hidden 5-letter word from coloured clues. Word Labyrinth is a transformation puzzle: both words are visible, and your task is to find the shortest valid sequence of one-letter changes that connects them. Weaver is the closest comparable — a 4-letter daily word ladder. Word Labyrinth differs in that it offers 5 daily puzzles of varying lengths, leaderboards, streaks, hints, and an unlimited expert mode.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a word ladder?
A puzzle that transforms one word into another by changing exactly one letter at each step, with every intermediate word being a valid dictionary word.
Is Word Labyrinth free?
Yes. The daily puzzles, leaderboards and core game are free on web, iOS and Android.
How long is each puzzle?
Most daily puzzles are solvable in 4–10 steps and take 1–3 minutes each.
How many words long is the chain?
It depends on the start and target words. Easy puzzles need 3–5 steps; hard puzzles can require 10+ steps.
Can I look up word ladder answers?
You can — but half the fun is finding the path yourself. Word Labyrinth shows you an optimal path after you finish each puzzle, so you can compare it against your own.
Explore Word Labyrinth
Word Labyrinth is best played in a modern browser with JavaScript enabled. Please enable JavaScript to play the interactive game.