Section 2: Playing Lexel

The playing area starts out empty, with new tiles steadily popping onto the board at random places with random letters. Once a few tiles are available, your task is to start forming words!

For example, in the image above, you can now see the letters for the word "LEND" scattered about the playing area.

Use your finger to drag tiles around. When you've found a word, line up the tiles next to each other:

Now, we have dragged the tiles so that "LEND" is lined up, from top-to-bottom, in the lower-right corner of the board. Note that words can be spelled horizontally or vertically, and in either direction (i.e., including backwards and bottom-up). Words must be a minimum of 3 letters long.

When your word is lined up, tap the first letter, then the last letter in the word in order to "zap" it:

(In this case, first tap the "L" in lend, so that is selected.) If you have selected a valid word, the tiles will disappear from the board, and you will score points! See the scoring section below for more info on how points are calculated.

After tapping the "D", the letters from the word "LEND" disappear from the board; the word score is indicated in the status area in the bottom-right.

Occasionally, "Bonus Tiles" will appear, such as the orange "A" tile in the picture below:

Use these wisely to multiply your word score! (Note that these will change back to normal tiles when the board fills up completely, so you might want to use them before that happens!)

As the game progresses, the tiles will appear more frequently...so you'll have to zap words more quickly to keep the board empty! Points for words also increase as the game speed increases.

When the grid fills with tiles, no new tiles will appear, and the first phase of the game is over.

However, you now have a chance to clear as many tiles as you can -- if you can first find a word that doesn't require moving any tiles!

In this example, you can see "ROOF" is available in the upper-right corner.

Once you've found a word, you can shuffle the other tiles around in order to form as many words as possible. In this phase of the game, you can relax and take a well-earned break! The timer is off, so points are only scored based on letters and lengths of words.

There's a large bonus if you manage to use up all of the tiles! Otherwise, tap "Done" and then "End Game" in order to finish your game and get your final score.

If you have a high score, you will be prompted for your name and your score will be added to the high scores list. Additionally, if your score qualifies, you will have the option to post to our website, where we highlight the best Lexel players from around the world!

Since games are often more fun with healthy competition, you also have the option to "brag" about your high scores to your friends in your social networks at Facebook and/or Twitter. When you enable this, Lexel will post your high scores to your feed(s) whenever you get a #1 score on your phone or make the world-wide leaderboard, so you can compete against your friends.

Use the "Word List" button at any time during or after your game to see a list of all the words you played, and their point totals. Use the "View High Scores" button to see how your score ranks!

On the High Scores screen, you can see the top scores for each selection of board size and speed, and even look up the full word list for any of the top games (by tapping the corresponding "Words" button). Use the "Word Scores" button in the lower-right to see the top single-word plays from all games.