How to play Don't Guess
The complete rules, an example round, and a strategy guide.
The idea
Don't Guess is a word game played in reverse. A secret five-letter word is chosen. You must enter six real five-letter words, one per row. If one of your words turns out to be the secret word, you lose on the spot. Get through all six rows without hitting it, and you survive - that's a win.
Sounds trivial? It would be, except for one rule that changes everything: every clue the board reveals becomes a law you must obey for the rest of the round.
The four rules
- Real words only. Every guess must be a five-letter word from the game's dictionary of nearly 16,000 words. You can't play the same word twice in one round.
- Locked letters stay locked. When a letter lights up green (orange in high-contrast mode), every later guess must keep that letter in that exact position.
- Marked letters must keep appearing - somewhere new. When a letter lights up yellow (blue in high-contrast mode), it's in the secret word. Every later guess must include it, but never in the spot where it was already marked - you have to move it. If two copies are marked, you must use two copies.
- Banned letters are gone. When a letter comes up gray, it isn't in the secret word, and you may never use it again this round. (If a word shows one yellow E and one gray E, the secret has exactly one E - so later guesses must have exactly one E.)
An example round
Say the hidden word is SHARD (you don't know that yet) and you open with STORM:
That single guess just rewrote your world: every later word must start with S, must contain an R somewhere other than the 4th spot, and may never use T, O, or M. Your 16,000-word dictionary just shrank to a few hundred words - and one of them is the answer. Each following guess tightens the noose further. The safe words counter above the board tells you exactly how many legal words are left that are not the answer.
Traps
Sometimes the rules pile up so brutally that no legal word exists except the hidden answer. That's a trap, and it's the signature thrill of the game. When it happens you have two options:
- Spend an undo - your latest guess (and every rule it created) is taken back, and you try a different escape route.
- Accept your fate - the board plays the answer for you, and the round is lost. Honourable, at least.
You get 5 undos per round, and they can be used any time - not just in traps. Every word you take back stays listed in the Past undos panel under the keyboard, so you always remember which escape routes you already burned.
The word journal
Don't Guess quietly builds your vocabulary while you play. Every hidden word you face - dodged or not - is collected in your word journal (the book icon in the header) along with its dictionary definition. There's also a lookup box for any word that catches your eye, including the obscure escape words this game will teach you. None of this affects gameplay; it's a side bonus for word lovers.
Strategy guide: six ways to survive
1. Open weird
In a normal word game you open with vowel-rich crowd-pleasers. Here, that's suicide - hitting lots of letters means lots of rules. Open with words full of rare letters: think JAZZY, FJORD, QOPHS. The fewer clues you trigger, the freer you stay.
2. Duplicates are your friends
A word like MAMMA only exposes two distinct letters. Doubled and tripled letters waste slots - in this game, wasted slots are pure profit.
3. Court the gray, fear the green
Gray letters ban future options, which hurts. But green letters are catastrophic: a locked first letter can cut your pool by 95% in one stroke. When choosing between risky words, prefer ones whose letters, if they hit, would land as yellows rather than greens (avoid common letter positions like S-first or E-last).
4. Watch the counter like a pilot watches fuel
The safe-word counter is your instrument panel. Above 500, cruise. Under 100, plan two moves ahead. Under 20, every guess should be chosen from words you can verify are safe-ish - and think hard about what each one will reveal if it partially hits.
5. Spend undos early, not late
A counter-intuitive one: an undo used at guess three, when a careless word locked in two greens, often saves more equity than an undo hoarded for a trap at guess six - by then the pool may be so tight that undoing once doesn't free you anyway.
6. Learn the anagram dodge
If your marked letters allow several arrangements (like anagram families - LEAST, STEAL, SLATE, TALES), you can sometimes burn rows shuffling the same letters while revealing almost nothing new. Handle with care: each shuffle risks landing on the answer itself.
Daily vs Unlimited
The Daily challenge uses one shared secret word per calendar day - the same for every player on Earth - and it's where your streak lives. You get one attempt per day, so make it count, then flex your emoji grid with the Share button. Unlimited deals a fresh random word every round with no cap: perfect for practice, tilt-recovery, or long commutes.
Frequently asked questions
Why was my word rejected as "not in the word list"?
The dictionary contains nearly 16,000 five-letter English words, but not proper nouns, hyphenated words, or extremely obscure jargon. If a legitimate word is missing, tell us via the contact address on the About page.
Does the game cheat and move the word?
Never. The secret word is fixed the moment a round starts - the daily word is even computed from the date itself, which is how everyone gets the same puzzle. The squeeze you feel is pure mathematics.
What's a good survival rate?
These rules are brutal: random legal play survives barely one round in three. Holding a 50% survival rate means you've internalised the strategy above; 70%+ with few undos is elite territory.
Where are my stats stored?
In your browser's local storage, on your device. Nothing about your play is uploaded anywhere. It also means clearing site data erases your streak - browse carefully.
Can I play offline?
Yes - after your first visit the game installs a lightweight offline cache. You can even add it to your home screen like an app.