Upwords is a word tile game played on a grid where players can build horizontally or vertically and can also stack letters on existing words to transform them. Scoring is based on words formed during a turn, with special handling for words containing stacked tiles.

How to Play Upwords

Setup

Place all 100 letter tiles in the tile bag. Each player takes a rack, draws one tile to determine turn order, returns it, then draws seven tiles. Keep a dictionary nearby for challenges only.

First Turn

The first player forms a word of at least two letters across or down, covering one of the central start squares. A one-level word scores 2 points per letter tile, then the player refills to seven tiles.

Later Turns

On later turns, play one or more tiles from your rack in a single straight line across or down. You may connect to existing words, stack on top of existing letters to change words, or do both in one turn. Every newly formed adjacent word must be valid. After scoring, refill your rack to seven tiles.

Stacking

Stacks can change existing words. You may place only one new tile on a given stack during a turn, cannot stack a letter directly on the same letter, cannot cover an entire existing word, and cannot stack higher than five tiles.

Passing and Exchanging

A player may pass. A player may also exchange one tile for a new tile, losing that turn.

Ending

The game ends when a player uses all their tiles and the bag is empty, or when all players pass consecutively because no one can make a word.

Flat words score 2 per letter tile. Words containing any stacked letter score 1 per tile in the word, including tiles underneath. Score every word formed. Add 2 for Qu in a flat word, add 20 for playing all seven rack tiles, and subtract 5 for each unplayed tile at game end.

Record final_score as the authoritative outcome. turn_count is a diagnostic count metric only: Upwords scoring is non-additive — the same tile is counted in every word it belongs to, the Qu (+2), all-seven-tiles (+20), and per-unplayed-tile (-5) adjustments are situational, and a running per-turn total is what players track — so turn_count and any per-turn entries never sum to final_score.