Letter Bridge is a multiplayer word game where players take turns connecting words by overlapping letters at the boundary. The more letters you overlap, the more you score. Players have lives and a shrinking timer. Last player standing wins the round.
Getting Into a Room
Create a room from the homepage or join with a code someone shares. Once everyone is in the lobby, the host picks Letter Bridge from the game selector. Before starting, the host can adjust starting lives, the bridge points threshold for earning extra lives, and whether the timer shrinks each lap. Once options are set, the host starts the game.
How the Bridge Works
Every round begins with a random word placed on the board by the game. Players go around in turn order, each person extending the bridge by submitting a new word.
The connection rule: the last letter of the current word must be the first letter of your new word. That is the minimum. But if multiple letters at the end of the current word also match the start of yours, you can use all of them.
For example, if the current word is BRAVE:
- A word starting with "E" uses a 1-letter overlap, worth 1 point
- A word starting with "VE" uses a 2-letter overlap, worth 2 points
- A word starting with "AVE" uses a 3-letter overlap, worth 3 points
You always want to find the longest overlap you can to help earn the most lives.
Scoring
Every valid word you submit earns you 1 point on the scoreboard. On top of that, the bridge points you earn from overlaps count separately toward earning extra lives (more on that below).
Rare words get a bonus point. If your word scores in the top 5% by rarity, you get an extra point.
At the end of a round, the winner gets an additional 5 points.
Lives
Everyone starts with 2 lives by default. If your turn timer runs out before you submit a valid word, you lose a life. Lose all your lives and you are eliminated for the round.
You earn lives back through points. Once your total points cross the threshold (10 by default), you gain a life and the threshold moves up by the same amount. So you can earn multiple lives over a long game if you keep submitting high-overlap words.
Word family variants (like "RUNS" after "RUN" is already on the board) do not earn points even if the word itself is valid, so they will not help you build toward a life.
The Timer
Each turn starts with 8 seconds on the clock. You need to submit a valid word before it hits zero.
With Shrink Timer on (the default), every time all active players have each taken one turn, the timer gets 0.5 seconds shorter. It will not go below 4 seconds. By the time the game has been going a while, turns are fast and there is no room to second-guess yourself.
Word Rules
A submission is rejected if:
- It does not connect to the current word by at least the last letter
- It has already been used this round
- It is not a recognised word
If the current word has no valid unused continuations (no words in the dictionary start with its last letter that have not already been used), the game automatically picks a new starting word and the bridge continues from there.
If you submit an alternate tense of a word that's already been submitted (like RUNS after RUN, or PEELED after PEEL), your word will be accepted, but you won't get progress towards another life.
Badges
After each round, three badges are awarded on the summary screen:
- Longest Word: the player who submitted the longest word in the round
- Rarest Word: the player whose word used the most uncommon letters
- Highest Scoring Word: the player who got the biggest single overlap of the round
Badges do not affect your score. They are just there to highlight standout moments.
Tips
Think ahead while other players are going. If the current word ends in "X", you should already be cycling through options before your turn starts.
Go for bigger overlaps when you can. A 3-letter overlap earns 3 points and builds your life count faster. Single-letter links are always valid but they give you less.
Do not run the clock out chasing a perfect word. Submitting something valid in 3 seconds beats finding the best possible word in 7. Especially once the timer has shrunk.
If you are down to one life, switch to safe and fast plays. Rare word bonuses are nice but getting eliminated because you ran down the clock is worse than scoring a small overlap.
Pay attention to what words have already been used.