Spell words by moving through touching tiles. The counter at the top shows how many of the day's required words you have found.
Starting with a swipe
A short tutorial opens first, with the letters P, L, A and Y and a green prompt to swipe through them. A Skip control sits in the corner, and skipping drops you straight onto the day's grid. A counter reads something like 0 out of a number of words, and tapping it opens the word list and hints.
You can swipe in any direction, and each tile in a word has to touch the one before it. On a physical keyboard, type the word and press Enter. Per the FAQ, the grid adjusts to find the path. Backspace deletes a letter and Esc cancels the word without hurting accuracy.
First sitting
Short words come quickly and the counter jumps. Required words are the common ones. Bonus words are valid but rarer, and they do not add to your main count. Where the line falls gets explained in the FAQ: a frequency list first, then dictionaries, then plain judgement, erring toward bonus when a word is obscure.
Letters fade out once they stop appearing in required words, which tells you where not to look. A rotate button beside the board turns the grid without resetting anything, and small numbers in tile corners, once unlocked as perks, show how many words start or pass through that tile.
Express is a smaller grid with a shorter list, a gentler way to learn how the swiping feels.
The itch to find one more
A progress bar marks the next perk and shows where the average player stands, so you can see whether the day's grid is being kind. According to the FAQ, puzzles are meant to be easiest on Mondays and hardest on Fridays, and hints open up twelve hours after release.
A Bonus Word of the Day, leaderboards and a share text with an asterisk for hint-free solves give plenty of reasons to keep going. A post on the developer's blog, The Making of a Squaredle, walks through how one puzzle gets built and sorted into required and bonus words.
Paid membership and ads
Ads sit on the page. A paid membership called Squaredle Squared removes them and adds the archive of past daily puzzles, weekly specials and hint perks that arrive sooner, according to the FAQ. The FAQ lists several ways to pay and mentions a Ko-fi option as well.
A donation link and a merchandise shop appear in the menu. An account area handles stats and membership. Read the Terms of Use, which name Squaredle LLC, before paying.
A good fit for
Anyone who has circled words in a word-search book and would like the same pleasure on a daily rhythm. Players who dislike obscure vocabulary will appreciate the bonus-word split.
Setup
It runs in a browser tab at squaredle.app. Nothing else is needed to begin, and the tutorial can be skipped.