Game guide

How to Play Solitile

Draw, sort, and clear every family of word cards into crowned slots in as few moves as you can — a daily word-association solitaire.

A daily word-association solitaire. Each deal scatters a handful of families — a category card plus its words. Open every family on a crowned slot, file all of its words home, and clear the board. Every deal can be solved, so the game is to untangle it in as few moves as you can.

The loop

How it works

Two moves make the whole game. A crowned card dropped on an empty slot opens that family; its words then drag home into the slot one by one. Fill the last word and the family is complete — the slot pops, clears, and frees up for the next family.

  • Tap the pile to flip its top card face-up into play.
  • Drag a face-up card, or the pile’s top card, onto a slot or a column.
Key terms

The cards & the board

The Fruit crown opens a slot; its words file in until the count is full.
Crowned card (a family).
Names a family and is the only card that can open a slot.
Word card.
One member of a family. It goes home into its family’s open slot, or waits in a column until then.
Slot.
A goal. There are only three, shared by every family — a crown opens one, it fills 1/2, 2/2…, then pops and clears the moment the family is complete.
Columns (the tableau).
Your workspace. The deal stacks cards here — all but each column’s top card start face-down — and you park spare cards here while you juggle.
The pile (stock & waste).
Your face-down draw stack. Flipping the top card lays it face-up on the waste beside it, ready to drag.
Moves.
The counter top-left. Every flip and every drag adds one — it only climbs. It is a score to keep low, not a limit you can bust.
Recycle.
When the draw stack runs dry, flip the spent waste back into a fresh pile. This one action is free — it costs no move.
Common misreads

Watch out for

The pile isn't free.Every flip from the pile and every drag spends a move. The only free action is recycling the spent waste back into the draw stack — so draw only when you actually need the next card.
You can't park just anywhere.An empty column takes any card. But onto a non-empty column, a word lands only on its own crowned card or another word of the same family — you can’t drop Gold on Pear.
Three slots, many families.Only three families can be open at once, yet a day deals five to seven. The order you open them matters: clear a family to free its slot before you strand a card with nowhere to go.
Grab the crown, not the top word.Words stacked on top of their category card ride along when you move it. Grab the crown at the base of that stack and the whole run opens the slot and files home in a single move; grab the word on top and you only move that one card.
Worked example

Walk one through

A tiny two-family deal — Fruit = Pear + Plum, Metal = Iron + Gold. Fruit’s crown, Pear, and Metal’s crown (with Iron already stacked on it) start in the columns; Plum and Gold wait in the pile. Here the sequence, not the matching, is the puzzle.

  1. Open Fruit

    Drag Fruit’s crown onto an empty slot. It opens at 0/2. move 1
    Reaching for Pear first?An empty slot only accepts a crown. Open the family, then feed it.

  2. File Pear, then draw for Plum

    Drag Pear home → 1/2. Now flip the pile to bring Plum up to the waste. moves 2–3
    That flip counts.Plum isn’t on the board yet, so you must flip the pile to reach it — and the flip itself is a move. Don’t flip just to look around.

  3. Complete Fruit

    Drag Plum onto the slot → 2/2. Fruit pops, and the slot empties and frees up again. move 4
    The slot clears completely.Slots are shared, so finishing one hands that goal straight to the next family.

  4. Open Metal in one move — the crown carries Iron

    Grab Metal’s crown (Iron is stacked on it) and drop the pair on the free slot → 1/2. move 5
    Grab the crown, under Iron.Lift Metal’s crown and Iron rides along — the slot opens and Iron files in the same move. Grab Iron on top instead and you’d only move Iron.

  5. Draw Gold and finish

    Flip the pile for Gold and drag it home → 2/2. Metal completes, the board is clear — solved in 7 moves. moves 6–7
Win condition

Clearing the board

Clear every family — all its words sorted into its crowned slot — and the board is solved. There’s nothing to run out of: every deal is built to be solvable, so your only real score is how few moves it took.

A fresh deal lands daily at midnight Eastern Time. The week ramps up — Monday deals five families; by Sunday it’s seven, some running up to eight words each — so later boards ask for more juggling of the three shared slots.