Tangle
Also known as Woven words and Interleaved words
Two words from one theme have been woven into a single strip of letters: every letter of both is there once, each word's letters keep their order, but the words take turns. Give each word's letters a colour to pull them apart. The theme is always named; Expert tangles three words. Any threading that spells real words wins, but every board is dealt so only one does.
How it works
- Two words from one theme have been woven into a single strip. Every letter of both is there once, in its word's order, but the words take turns.
- Pick a colour, then tap or drag across letters to give each word's letters their own colour. Tap a letter again in the same colour to clear it.
- Once every letter is coloured, each colour's letters are read along the strip. Any threading that spells real words wins — but every board is dealt so only one does.
- The theme is always named. Hard uses longer words, and Expert tangles three.
- A hint colours one letter as the answer has it — a wrong one first, else the leftmost one still uncoloured.
Good if you want…
- A word puzzle you can finish in a minute
- Spotting words from their letters rather than their clues
- Something to play with one thumb
How to solve Tangle
Anchor both ends
The first letter of the strip has to be the first letter of one of the words, and the last letter has to be the last letter of one of them. That is two letters settled before you have thought about the theme at all. The other word starts early, too. Runs are capped (see below), so on Easy and Medium the second word has begun by the fourth letter, and on Hard by the third.
Let the theme suggest candidates
The theme is always named, and it narrows things far more than the letters do. Count the strip, since its length is the two words added together, then think of theme words that could fit. On Easy both words run to four or five letters, on Medium five to seven, and on Hard six to nine. For each candidate, check that its letters appear along the strip in order. One that needs an R before an S, where the strip only has the S first, is out.
Runs are short
Words are woven finely. On Easy and Medium a word never takes more than three letters in a row, and on Hard and Expert never more than two, for as long as another word still has letters to place. So if you have coloured two neighbouring letters the same on a Hard board, and the other word is not finished, the next letter belongs to the other word. Once one word runs out, the rest of the strip belongs to whatever is left, which is why the tail of a strip can be one long run. This is the rule that breaks most deadlocks when two readings both look possible.
Rare letters give words away
A letter that appears only once in the strip belongs to exactly one word, and a K, V, W or Z usually points straight at the candidate that needs it. Look for common endings too. Two words means two endings, and an -ING, -ER or trailing S near the right-hand end often shows which letters close which word.
Check the leftovers before you commit
Once one word is coloured, read the letters you have not used, in order. On a two-word board they must spell the other word exactly. If they don't, the first word is right in its letters but wrong in which copy of a letter it took, and moving one colour usually fixes it.
Common mistakes
- Assuming the words alternate. They take turns, but unevenly, and a word can take two or three letters in a row.
- Taking the first copy of a repeated letter without thinking. When a word needs an E and the strip has two, the choice decides what is left for the other word.
- Forgetting the third colour on Expert. Three words means three colours, and every letter needs one.
Tangle questions
What if I find different words that also work?
Any colouring that spells real words wins. Every board is dealt so that only one set of words can be pulled out of the strip, so a threading that works is the answer. Where two identical letters could belong to either word, either way counts.
How many words are in a strip?
Two on Easy, Medium and Hard, and three on Expert. Every letter belongs to exactly one of them, and none is shared.
When is my answer checked?
Once every letter has a colour. Until then nothing is marked right or wrong unless you take a hint, so you can recolour as often as you like.
Tangle in Winters Puzzles
Tangle is one of 40 puzzles in Winters Puzzles, so it sits alongside Word Search, Silhouette, Word Dominoes and everything else in the app rather than being a download of its own. It counts towards your stats and streak like any other puzzle. It also has a published board in Pip’s dailies, with earlier dates available in the archive.
Play Tangle.
Free on iPhone and iPad, with 39 other puzzles alongside it. Or play it in your browser — no download, nothing to sign up for.
