Shrinkle

Shrinkle presents whole words and asks you to slim them down. Each click removes a letter, and the shortened word must remain a valid word; you repeat this until the reduced words reveal the day's hidden phrase. No keyboard, no typing: everything is done by removing letters from words already placed.

1. Spot the starting words shown letter by letter on the board.
2. Click a letter to remove it from the word that contains it.
3. Check that what remains still forms a valid word: that is the only constraint imposed on each removal.
4. Continue reducing word by word until the whole set reveals the hidden phrase.

Remove rather than add: Shrinkle reverses the usual move of word games, and the constraint that a word must always remain valid turns each click into a small stability calculation. The rules reward curiosity, since valid dead ends cost nothing, while removals that break a word carry real risk. It's a game of controlled demolition, and seeing the hidden phrase emerge from a heap of truncated letters delivers a rather rare satisfaction.

The game distinguishes two ways to be wrong, and that's its charm. A removal that does not leave a valid word counts as a mistake, and the rules allow three before the end of the game. By contrast, a perfectly valid word that does not lead to the solution is treated as a "detour": no penalty, and the rules even encourage continuing to explore.

Daily Puzzle

A new grid is published each day at midnight, numbered at the top of the page.

Archive

An Archive button appears in the header, next to the icons for statistics, help, and feedback.

• Explore without fear: as long as the word you obtain is valid, it does not count as an error. The allowance of three mistakes is only reduced by removals that break a word.
• Don't hunt for exotic vocabulary. The game's word list excludes obscure words, hyphenated words, and proper names, so the solution necessarily uses common words.
• The help panel contains an animated demonstration, "Watch the Process": a few seconds of watching are worth more than an error spent learning the mechanic.