About LexiTales
LexiTales is an original word-tile board game for ages 9–14 — inspired by the great family of crossword-tile games, but with its own board, its own word list, and tile values counted from that word list (where the numbers come from). You build interlocking words and think about where each tile scores the most.
A fair, open word list
LexiTales checks your words against a curated, kid-friendly list of common English words drawn from the public-domain ENABLE word list — not a trademarked tournament dictionary. Every word is hand-picked to be familiar and appropriate, so the game is forgiving and friendly to learn on.
A real, beatable opponent
The solo bot searches the same word list and plays a genuine game, but it is a graded heuristic — deliberately human-like, not a perfect solver — so Easy, Standard, and Hard each feel like a different, fair opponent you can actually beat.
Three ways to play
- Play — a full game against the bot at your chosen level.
- Pass & play — two players share one device, with a friendly turn screen.
- Puzzle — a solo challenge: build the best word you can, then reveal the engine's best and see how a premium square can change the answer.
The game's report card
How long is a game, and is it fair to whoever goes first? We did not guess: the engine played itself 100 times and counted. Each player picks at random from the words it can legally lay (the main word and every cross word must be on the list) and passes only when it has none; swapping tiles isn't used. A game ends when someone plays their last tile with the bag empty, or after two passes in a row. Random play is not how people play, so these numbers describe the rules, not players.
100 random-play games. One move = one word laid, or a pass. | Game | Finished | Typical length | Ends with a winner | First player wins (of games with a winner) | Choices per turn |
| Two players | 100% | 36 moves | 98% | 54% | 29.4 |
Every score, every legal-move check, and the bot's choices are computed by a small, exact, deterministic engine (pinned by automated tests), so the game is fair and identical on any device. Nothing about your play leaves your device — no account, no tracking. Honest note: LexiTales practices meaning, spelling, and board-geometry reasoning through play — the words you can mean are the words you keep. It makes no exam or skill-transfer claim.
What the meaning card asks: when you lay a word of four letters or more, the game asks what it means — one card a turn. If you miss it or tap “Show me”, that word waits for next turn, and the word you lay instead scores as a word you've met. Our dictionary has a 1-of-3 question (a meaning and two wrong ones) for 2,418 of those 2,418 words, and 2,420 words on the 2,880-word list in all. If a word ever has no card yet, you use it in a sentence of your own instead (checked by simple rules): it scores and your line is kept, but only a right answer on a card makes it a word you mean. Two-letter words score plainly; most three-letter everyday words and 109 little grammar words like from, that and which are never asked — they score and join your shelf as words you've met. In pass & play, the word of three letters or more is said out loud to the table (the grammar words aside); if the table says “not yet”, the word you lay instead scores as met.