Feetle Unlimited

What Feetle Unlimited is

Feetle Unlimited is the practice table. Every round deals a random everyday start word, you climb to FEET with the usual rules, and the New word button deals the next one. Play five rounds on a lunch break or fifty on a slow evening.

Undo, the three hint levels and give up all work exactly as they do in the daily puzzle. Your current round is saved in this browser, so closing the tab doesn't lose it.

Easy, medium and hard rounds

Pick a level above the board. Each one draws its start word from the everyday words at that distance from FEET:

Easy rounds are mostly about spotting the open door: TOES goes to FOES, FEES and FEET in three. Medium is where first-move traps start to cost you, because most start words have more wrong first moves than right ones.

Hard is a small, mean pool. JAZZ is in it: par 8, and it has exactly one first move, RAZZ. From there the ladder drifts through RAZE, FAZE and FADE before it finds the plurals that lead home. There are 24 shortest routes, and every one of them starts the same way.

Tips that get you to par more often

A few hundred rounds of Feetle Unlimited teach you the shape of the word list. These are the habits that pay off soonest:

• Get an E into the 2nd spot early. 11 of the 12 words one step from FEET have it there; the odd one out is FRET.
• Plurals are a fast lane. FEES has more neighbors than any other word one step from FEET, so a start word ending in S can often ride FEDS, FOES or FETS straight in.
• Count the letters that don't match FEET. Par can never be less than that number, and when par is higher, a letter will have to change more than once.
• Use undo to scout. Try a word, look at where it leaves you, and take it back. It's free, though your result notes it.

Feetle Unlimited vs the daily puzzle

The daily puzzle is one start word for everyone, with a streak, an answer page and a result worth sharing. Feetle Unlimited has none of that pressure. Its results are kept apart from your daily stats, it never touches your streak, and no two players are likely to get the same run of words.

Use it to warm up before the daily, or to cool off after a +3. When you want help on a specific word, the solver shows hints for any start word, and how to play has the full rules.