Help and support

Drag your finger from letter to letter. Letters connect up, down, left and right, not diagonally. The clue card shows the current clue and how many letters its word has.

Words are found in story order, one clue at a time. Every open letter on the board is used exactly once, so the last word of a level always takes the letters that are left.

No. A path shorter than the word stays on the board. Touch its last letter, or a letter next to it, to keep going. Touch a letter in the middle of the path to cut back to it, tap the last letter to remove it, or touch anywhere else to start a new path.

They are blocked squares: tea chests in the shop, cauldrons in the brewing room, stumps and ferns in the forest. You can't drag through them. Every other letter still has to be used.

You spelled the right word, but along a path that would make the board impossible to finish. The message tells you why:

• a single letter would be cut off from everything else,
• a few letters would be boxed in, fewer than any word you still need,
• the open spaces left could not be split into the words you still need (word lengths are always shown on the clue card).

The letters that would be stranded flash orange. Try the same word along another path. The next Hint backs up to the part of your path that was right.

The badge next to the level number tells you how much planning the board needs. Hard and Very hard boards are bigger, have more blocked squares and exactly one solution, so it pays to look before you drag. Easier levels come between them, so you always get a breather.

• Investigation: the words you find are clues and go into the year's case file.
• Deduction: after the last word, choose the culprit and the key clue. A wrong guess just lets you try again.
• Skywrit: a race through the sky. Every letter scores; beat your rival's bar.
• Duels and boss fights: each clue is the spell your opponent casts, and the word is the spell that counters it.
• Rhymes: every word in the level rhymes.
• The missing E: in year 2, boards on the floating island have no letter E at all.
• Riddles (from year 3): the clue is a riddle or a play on words. The plain clue button shows an ordinary clue for free.
• Compound words (from year 4): find two words, such as SUN and RISE, and they join into one, SUNRISE.
• Year 5: a typo mouse swaps letters in the clue (chase it away for free), a spelling bee with words that are tricky to spell, and a courtroom where you answer each claim with the evidence you found.
• Dream levels (year 6): some words read backwards as another word, like STAR and RATS. Trace them either way.
• Year 7: pencil sketches that fill with colour as you find words, and boards where the letters of each word fall away.

If your path is on the right track, Hint adds the next letter. If part of it is wrong, Hint backs up to the longest correct start. With nothing on the board, it shows the first letter. Hinted letters appear in gold in the answer boxes.

After each Hint the button needs 10 seconds to recharge (30 seconds after a free one, see below). The ring around it shows the time left.

In the Android app a Hint costs 1 token. You start with 10 tokens, earn 1 for each scene you finish for the first time (2 for a Hard or Very hard scene), and get a daily gift of 5 tokens once a day.

On Hard and Very hard levels you can reveal the whole current word for 3 tokens.

Up to 3 times a day you can also trade 30 Glowink for 3 hint tokens in the ink shop.

Keep tapping Hint: it still works, for free. The only difference is the wait: after a free hint the button needs 30 seconds to recharge instead of 10. Tokens come back with tomorrow's gift, each new scene and the ink shop. You never have to watch anything or pay for anything.

No. The game has no ads of any kind, in the Android app or the web demo. See the privacy policy.

No. Hints are unlimited in the web demo.

Glowink is the golden ink you earn by playing: for each new scene, for three stars, for finishing a chapter, for the Daily Leaf and for stamps. Spend it on boosters: Bullseye lights one letter you choose, and Firefly lights the first letter of every word that is left. Glowink can never be bought with money. You can also trade it for hint tokens.

The Daily Leaf is one puzzle a day, the same for every player. It opens after your first five scenes, and you can still play the last seven days. Each day you finish a scene or a Daily Leaf, you light a lantern. Missing a day is fine: a nap earned by Mochi can keep your row of lanterns going, and nothing you have earned is ever taken away.

In the Android app, yes, once a day at an hour you choose between 8 am and 8 pm. The reminder is off until you turn it on in Settings, and Android then asks for permission to show notifications. Turn it off in Settings at any time.

On your device only. There is no account and no cloud save, so we cannot see, move or restore your progress.

Uninstalling the game or clearing its storage deletes your progress. If backup is turned on in your phone's settings, Android may include the game's saves in your own device backup and restore them when you reinstall.

To keep the first download small, the paintings for later chapters come in separate packs. Google Play downloads the packs for years 1 and 2 right after you install the game, and each later pack a little before you reach it. If you were offline, connect to the internet for a moment and the chapter opens as soon as its art is ready. You can keep solving the board while the painting downloads.

Open Settings and choose Reset progress. You will be asked twice, because this can't be undone. To replay a single level, use the Start over button at the top of the level instead.

• Music and sound effects: the volume of each, or turn either off (also available inside every level).
• Reduce motion, for calmer scenes.
• Plain clues on the typo mouse levels of year 5, if the swapped letters get in the way.
• The daily reminder (Android), off until you turn it on.
• Privacy: what the game keeps (only on your device), and the privacy policy.
• Licences and credits, and Reset progress.

No. The game has no ads and sends no information about players anywhere, so there is nothing to consent to. Settings → Privacy says so in one line and links to the privacy policy.

Everyone aged 6 and up. Sam is 11 when the story starts and a year older each school year, and the story grows up with him. The first years are gentle. Later years bring masked villains, storms, dark caves and danger that is always resolved soon, and in years 4, 6 and 7 some beloved grown-up characters die. We never show it: we show them alive and smiling, then warm golden light, then what they leave behind, and the friends who remember them together. There is no blood, no injury beyond a bandage, and no scary jump or sound.

The words to find are English and grow harder slowly. Younger children may enjoy playing with a grown-up who reads the clues and the story with them.

• No purchases: nothing in the game can be bought with money.
• No ads of any kind. Hints come from playing, and they never run out: with no tokens left a hint is free, it just takes a little longer.
• No account, no chat, no way to contact other players, and no personal information collected by us.
• No spin wheels, mystery boxes or random prizes.
• Nothing is lost by taking a break, and the daily reminder is off until you turn it on.

Read the privacy policy and the terms of use, or write to us with any question.