How to Play ScriptBlade

ScriptBlade is a free multiplayer word battle game you play in your browser. Each turn you get a prompt, a short group of letters, and you answer with any word that contains it. Your word becomes your weapon: the rarer it is, the more damage it deals. Your ultimate objective is to eliminate all other players.

Winning takes vocabulary and strategy. You decide who to attack, when to protect yourself, and whether to team up with other players.

The basics: answer the prompt with a word

• Players take turns. When it is your turn you see a prompt, for example, ST.
• Type a real English word that contains those letters, for example STOP, FAST or OBSTREPEROUS, and pick a target.
• Answer before the timer runs out. A valid word hits your target. A word that is misspelled, not in the dictionary or missing the prompt does no damage.
• A player whose health reaches zero is out. The last player remaining wins the match.

Rare words deal more damage

Every word has a rarity based on how often it appears in English used on the internet. An everyday word still hits, but a word rarely mentioned online hits much harder. Rare words also heal you for part of the damage they deal.

Play a Rare or better word two rounds in a row and you charge a power-up: your next attack deals 25% more damage.

Choose your attack

Before a match you pick an attack in your loadout. Each one changes who your word hits.

• 

  Lightning Strike hits one target hard. Good for finishing off a player or turning the tide against the leader.

• 

  Dark Blast hits your target and the players next to it, spreading the damage across up to three opponents. Great for causing or removing weaknesses.

• 

  Earthquake hits the two players sitting next to you. Strong when you fight against multiple opponents.

Weaknesses

Strong hits leave the target weakened, which makes them take extra damage from one attack type. Lightning Strike and Earthquake apply a weakness with Rare or better words; Dark Blast only with Legendary words. A weakened player clears it by playing a Rare or better word themselves.

Abilities: Fireball, Barrier and Trap

As the match goes on you earn abilities you can use during your turn. Rare words make a new ability more likely, and you are guaranteed one if you go a few turns without getting one.

• 

  Fireball deals extra damage to a single player.

• 

  Barrier shields any player, you or an ally, from a large part of incoming damage.

• 

  Trap is an invisible trap on any player. When someone attacks that player, the trap blocks the damage and reflects some of it back to the attacker.

Strategy: attack, ally, betray

With up to 10 players in a match, the word battle is as much about people as it is about words.

• Pick your targets. Taking out the strongest player early can stop a runaway leader, while finishing a weak one removes an attacker.
• Make alliances in chat. Agree to focus a common enemy, or protect a partner with Barrier.
• Turn enemies against each other. Point out who is winning and let the others do the work.
• Save rare words for when they matter. A Legendary word on a weakened target can swing the whole match.

Game modes

STANDARD

THINK

CUSTOM

• Standard: two-letter prompts and 20 seconds per turn. Fast and approachable.
• Think: three- and four-letter prompts and 40 seconds per turn. Harder prompts, more time to find a rare word.
• Custom: choose the prompt lengths and turn time yourself.

Any room can also set a custom starting health, a handy way to balance a match between players of different levels.

Play with friends or against bots

Create a room and share the invite link to play word games with friends online, or join an open room to play against other players. You can add bots to any room and set their difficulty. Check out the tutorial too to win 500 gold if you haven't already.

Learn new words and track your vocabulary

ScriptBlade is also a vocabulary game. You practise spelling and recalling unusual words under time pressure, and the combat log shows every word your opponents play, so you learn new words from them. My Vocabulary records various statistics about you, such as how many unique words you know, your accuracy, answer speed, your longest and rarest words, and how your vocabulary grows over time. You can compare your rank with friends or other players.

Have a question that isn't covered here? See the FAQ. Curious how the dictionary was chosen? Read What is a word? For the latest changes, see the patch notes.