Boggle in brief
Boggle is a word game devised by Allan Turoff and brought out by Parker Brothers in the early 1970s. Sixteen lettered dice are shaken in a box and settle into a 4 × 4 grid; a three-minute sand timer is then turned over.
Each player writes down the words they find by linking neighbouring dice, horizontally, vertically or diagonally, without using the same die twice in a word. Words must have at least three letters. When time is up, words found by more than one player are crossed out, and the rest score points according to their length.
What players love about Boggle
- Speed: three minutes, not a second more, and the adrenaline of the sand timer.
- The quick eye: spotting an ending or a prefix, then unrolling every word that starts from it.
- The long word: the one that scores big and that nobody else saw.
- Comparison: reading your list aloud and discovering what the others found.
Relio keeps these ingredients, solo and with a grid shared by every player. Melimelo and Prefixo extend the work on letters, without a timer. All three games use French words.
Comparison: what each SIWA game shares with Boggle
| SIWA game | In common with Boggle | What changes |
|---|---|---|
| Relio | Neighbouring letters, 8 directions, 3 letters minimum | 5 × 5 by default, 90 seconds, solo, French |
| Melimelo | Finding a word in jumbled letters | Five anagrams guided by a clue |
| Prefixo | Unrolling words from the same start | Definitions, no grid |
Relio: the closest to Boggle
Relio takes up the Boggle move. A letter grid, 5 × 5 by default, and 90 seconds on the clock: link neighbouring cells, in all eight directions, to build French words of at least three letters. A cell can be used only once per word and each word counts only once.
The differences are mostly about format. The grid is bigger, the timer shorter, and the scoring strongly rewards length: 1 point for 3 letters, 2 for 4, 4 for 5, 7 for 6, 11 for 7 and 15 points from 8 letters. Letters carry no accents: an E can stand for É, È or Ê. On a computer, you can type words on the keyboard instead of tracing them, and the game finds the path in the grid. Relio has no joker: only your eye and the clock count.
When the timer ends, the game does not stop on its own. You can carry on in free exploration, without points, or reveal the solution: the summary then shows your words and every word you missed, with its path in the grid. It is the equivalent of comparing lists at the end of a Boggle round, without the opponents.
One point for English-speaking players: Relio only accepts French words, so English Boggle habits such as -ING endings will not help. French endings such as -ER, -ENT or -ION are the ones to look for.
Melimelo and Prefixo: letters without the clock
Melimelo trains a Boggle player's eye without time pressure. Five sets of scrambled letters appear, each forming a single French word of 5 to 8 letters, with a short clue. Tries are unlimited; a wrong guess keeps the letters that are already in the right place.
Prefixo trains another reflex that helps at Boggle: unrolling the words that share a beginning. A prefix appears with five short definitions, and each answer starts with that prefix. Its length is shown, the prefix is already in place, and tries are unlimited.
For more ideas, our guide to the daily word game presents all of SIWA's word games, and our selection of games like Scrabble is aimed at lovers of long words.
One grid a day, the same for everyone
At Boggle you compare words around the table. On SIWA, everyone receives the same grid on the same day: the daily leaderboard plays that role, at a distance. The grid changes at midnight, in your local time.
Everything is free and plays in the browser, on a phone or a computer, with nothing to download and no sign-up. A free account keeps your streaks and opens the archives so you can replay a missed grid.