Word in Bloom: guess before the petals fall

All together or one player sets the word: choose how to play

Word in Bloom is the gentle version of classic hangman: instead of the gallows there is a flower, and every wrong letter makes it lose a petal. Before you start, choose one of the two modes, because they change both the number of players and the spirit of the game.

• All together: the app picks the words and the group plays cooperatively against the flower. It works even on your own, or with a child beside you: you do not even need to enter any names.
• Word-setter mode: players take turns to write the secret word while the others try to guess it. You need at least 2 named players (up to 20), and there is a leaderboard at the end.

The settings, one by one

• Difficulty, the same for both modes: Easy allows 8 mistakes, Normal 6 and Hard 4. The flower starts with that many petals.
• Number of words (All together only): from 1 to 10 words in a row.
• Category (All together only): the default is Random, which draws from all the app’s categories, from animals to jobs, from sport to cities.
• Your own word list (All together only): you can have the app play with a list of your own, for example this week’s science words. Only single words of 3 to 16 letters are used.
• Rounds (word-setter mode only): from 1 to 5. In each round every player writes one word, so 4 players and 2 rounds make 8 words.

How the petals fall: the exact rules

1. The word appears as a row of empty boxes, one per letter. In All together mode a small clue label shows the word’s category.
2. You tap a letter on the keyboard. If it is in the word, it appears in every box where it belongs; if not, a petal falls and the mistake counter goes up.
3. Each letter can only be tried once: the ones already used stay marked on the keyboard, so you cannot repeat a mistake by accident.
4. The word is solved when all its letters are uncovered. There is no button for typing the whole answer: even if you have worked it out, you still have to complete it letter by letter.
5. If the mistakes reach the limit for the difficulty, the flower is left without petals and the word is revealed.

The keyboard shows the full A–Z alphabet in the familiar QWERTY rows, and it always looks the same: a key never appears just because the word needs it, so the keyboard itself gives nothing away. Accents do not count: CAFÉ is played as CAFE.

How you win

In All together the result belongs to the team: at the end you see how many words you saved, for example two out of three, and can look back over the list of words from the game. In word-setter mode the leaderboard rewards whoever defended the most words, meaning the ones the group failed to guess; in a tie, what counts is who drew the most mistakes from the others.

Grandma Jean’s flower: one word, six petals

Grandma Jean, Sophie and eight-year-old Alfie are playing in All together mode on Normal. Nine boxes appear, with the clue Animals.

1. Alfie, full of confidence, taps A: it is not there. First petal on the ground, mistakes 1 of 6.
2. Sophie tries E and it lands in the last box: _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ E.
3. Grandma Jean tries T: nothing, mistakes 2 of 6.
4. Alfie taps O: _ _ O _ O _ _ _ E. “Two Os with a gap in between!”
5. Sophie risks S: wrong, that makes 3 of 6, and Alfie protests.
6. Grandma Jean taps C: C _ O C O _ _ _ E. By now everyone has got it, but it still has to be finished: Alfie taps R, then D, I and L. CROCODILE, saved with three petals still on the flower.

In word-setter mode the same turn would go like this: Sophie types CROCODILE on the phone, taps “Hide and play” and passes it to the others. If the word is not in the app’s dictionary a warning appears, which is handy for catching typos: the setter can check it or confirm with “Use anyway”.

One phone in the middle of the sofa, or a phone each

With a single phone anyone can tap the letters: usually the group talks it over out loud and one person taps, or you pass the phone round for each letter. In word-setter mode the phone goes first to the person writing the word and then back to the group.

In an online room everyone joins with the code or the QR code and sees the word, the keyboard, the mistakes and the flower on their own screen, all in sync: whoever taps a letter first plays it for everyone. In word-setter mode the word is written in secret on your own phone, without passing it to anyone; the current setter sees the answer but cannot tap any letters. Moving on to the next word is up to whoever created the room. If someone leaves the room during a word-setter game, the game stops, because the order of setters changes.

Tricks for keeping your petals

• Start with E. It is the most common letter in English by some distance; after that, A, O and I are the vowels most worth trying.
• Then the strong consonants. T, N, S, R, H and L turn up in a huge number of words. J, Q, X and Z are almost never a good first guess.
• Read the doubles and the endings. Two boxes side by side after a vowel suggest LL, SS, EE or OO; a word ending in three empty boxes might be hiding -ING, and a long one might end in -TION.
• Keep an eye on the petals. With 4 mistakes allowed (Hard) every risky guess weighs twice as much: when two petals are left, only play letters you are almost sure of.
• For the setter: the trickiest words are often short ones with rare or double letters, such as JAZZ or FUZZY, not long ones: in a long word every right letter uncovers lots of boxes. And since the keyboard always shows every letter, a J or a Z gives nothing away.

The classic mistake is rushing: one person taps a letter before the group has decided, and the petal falls for everyone. Agree on a rule of “only tap once you have said it out loud”, especially with children.

From early readers to grandparents

All together mode suits children who have only just learnt to read, because nobody loses on their own and the category clue helps a lot; on Easy, eight mistakes are allowed. Word-setter mode works better from about the age of 9 or 10, when children can write a word without misspelling it. The number of players is very flexible: on your own, in pairs or with a whole class. It is the right game for a rainy afternoon, a train journey or the ten minutes before dinner. More ideas for younger players are collected in Word games for kids; if the group wants more of a challenge with letters, move on to Word Wheel.