Yes! Just click on the word in the wordlist to the right and it will be removed. This takes a bit of time to do, though, so we advise against making typos in the first place.

Some games, especially tournament games, may have blank tiles on the grid. Treat these tiles as if they weren't there; you can't use blank tiles to build your words. A blank tile is not a wildcard tile.

Prolific grids are random, following letter frequency rules. When you create a game you choose a target band for the number of valid words on the grid. The generator keeps producing grids until one falls inside the band (or, if it can't find one in 200 tries, picks the closest one it saw).

Today's Special is a featured game configuration that appears on the home page each day. Anyone can launch it as a solo or realtime game using the normal create game buttons and by checking the Today's Special option.

A recipe is a saved game configuration: style, grid size, minimum word length, time, dictionary penalty, letter frequency, and (optionally) a word count band or a fixed grid template. Recipes sit in a queue, and each day the recipe at the front of the queue becomes Today's Special.

Yes! Click Add a recipe from the Today's Special panel on the home page or from the recipes page. Pick the settings you'd like the rest of us to play, and your recipe joins the back of the queue. You can have one recipe in the queue at a time; once it's been featured you can submit another.

Recipes are featured in queue order, one per day, so the wait depends on how many are queued ahead of yours.

Yes – while it's still in the queue, click Add a recipe from the home page and you'll see your queued recipe with a delete button.

A watchword is a single word announced on the home page. The first non-solo game in which any player submits a valid answer matching it claims the watchword, and that game's result page will show that the watchword was found. There is only one watchword in play at a time.

Whoever found the previous watchword gets to pick the next one. If more than one player in the game found it, any of them can set the next word. A submission box appears on the home page for eligible players once the previous watchword has been claimed.

Everyone in that game who got it as a valid answer is recorded as a finder, and any one of them can choose the next watchword.

It must be a word in the Prolific dictionary.

After a watchword has been found, there's a gap until one of the finders picks the next one. During that gap the home page says the new watchword is being chosen.

Yes! Type these into the answer box during a game:

• /R — rotate the grid 90 degrees
• /T — transpose (mirror) the grid
• /U — undo the last word you submitted

On the game results page, press Ctrl+Enter (or Cmd+Enter on Mac) to jump straight into the next game. In 3D games, the arrow keys rotate the cube while you're playing, and holding Shift makes the cube translucent so you can see the back faces. On the results page of a 3D game, use Shift+arrow keys to rotate.

You used to be able to, but this function has been disabled since we moved away from Facebook.

You can. Create a new game from the home page and tick the "private" box. On the next screen it'll give you a link that you can send to your friends via mail or chat. Once you've played your first game, you can click the "Play another game" button on the game results page and play as many games as you like with your invited friends.

No-one likes cheats. Some people feel their self-worth is dependent on their leaderboard position, and, in a way, you have to feel sorry those people because they're obviously not having a good time. But cheating wrecks the game for others, and is not tolerated in Prolific. It's fairly easy to determine whether someone is cheating, and if found, they will be banned permanently.

Yes, of course there are! You are expected to behave like a well-conditioned member of a global society. The fact that you can't see your fellow players doesn't mean you have the right to be abusive towards them. Any such behaviour will result in banning at the discretion of the developer. Having said that, you are mostly a bunch of lovely people and thankfully this hasn't been much of a problem.

Prolific uses the CSW24 dictionary, plus 16+ letter words from YAWL with British English spellings added. Thanks to Thomas Furlong for putting this dictionary together for us!

Sorry! We've chosen the dictionary and are not accepting any additions or deletions. It's important to play with standard, publically available dictionaries which are used as a common standard for online word games. All the words in the dictionary exist and are used somewhere—you will not be familiar with them all, but part of the game is to learn them and use them against your opponents to win!

We've thought about this and decided to only support the one dictionary set.

You can take a look at the list here. Please note that these are almost all offensive words.

Yes, anyone can join up for a tournament. Go to the Tournament tab in the Prolific application and join up. You can only join between when the tournament is announced on the home page and when the tournament starts; you normally get a few days to join.

You are randomly paired up with 3 or more players from your tranche each round. Every player in this group will play each other. Wins are counted as 2 points, losses as 0 points, and draws as 1 point.

To pass, you must get at least the same number of points as the number of games you are assigned in the round. For example, if you have 3 games in a round, you must win 2 (4 points), or win 1 and draw 1 (3 points).

Players who pass will play the others who also passed from their tranche in the next round.

Players who do not achieve the required number of points are said to fall, and will play the others who fell from their tranche in the next round.

Everyone starts in tranche 1. Those who pass round 1 stay in tranche 1; those who fall are placed in tranche 2. The next round the system repeats:

Tournament rounds are two days long. Each round starts at midnight UTC on odd-numbered days (1st, 3rd, etc). There is no round on the 31st of the month.

The tournament finishes when there is only one player left in tranche 1.

Tournaments each have their own set up in terms of number of letters on the grid, minimum number of letters, number of dictionary penalty points, etc. Check the tournament configuration, available on the tournament tab, before playing so you know what kind of game you're up against!

An Arena is a scheduled, multi-round event where you go head to head with another player in a series of short realtime games. Each round the system pairs you up, you play, points get added to the leaderboard, and a little later the next round starts. Whoever has the most points when the Arena ends wins.

When an Arena is scheduled you'll see it advertised on the home page. The lobby opens a while before the first round and you can join from there with one click. There's no limit on how many players can take part. You can also join after rounds have already started; you'll just begin from the next round with zero points.

No. Before each round there's a short opt-in window where you tell the Arena you want to play this one. Miss the window and you simply sit that round out: you stay in the Arena and can opt in again next round. This means you can take a break or skip a round you don't fancy without losing your place.

In round one, pairings are random among everyone who opted in. After that, the Arena tries to pair you with someone close to you on the leaderboard, while avoiding rematches with anyone you've played in the last few rounds. The aim is to keep the games competitive and the matchups varied.

One player gets a bye: you play the game on your own against the grid. Score at least one point and you get 1 point for the round. The Arena spreads byes around so the same person doesn't keep getting them.

Each round you get:

• 2 points for a win
• 1 point for a draw, or for a bye where you scored
• 0 points for a loss

Win two rounds in a row and you're on a streak: while the streak is active each further win is worth 4 points instead of 2. Any loss or draw breaks the streak and resets you back to 2-point wins. Byes don't make or break a streak.

Each Arena has one or more recipes assigned to it, and the rounds cycle through them in order. The recipes are visible in the Arena description so you know what kind of grids to expect. Games are kept short to keep the Arena moving.

The player with the most total points when the final round ends. If two or more players are tied, the Arena looks at the head to head record between them, then the average strength of the opponents they played, and finally who joined first.

It depends. The start time, end time, and gap between rounds are all set when the Arena is scheduled, so check the Arena page for the exact timings.

Prolific uses the glicko2 rating system. Every three days, your Prolific rating is calculated by taking your glicko2 rating and subtracting double your glicko2 deviation.

For each opponent you play, the system looks at your rating and their rating. If your rating is higher than theirs, it will expect you to win more often than lose against them. If your rating is lower, it will expect you to lose more than win. The wider apart your ratings are, the higher the system's expectation that you will either lose (if theirs is higher) or win (if yours is higher.)

Not at all. The system is very fair: it knows that you should win the majority of games against people who are rated lower than yourself, but that you won't win every game. In fact, your rating can still go up if you exceed the system's expectation of the number of games you win against lower-rated players. So play those games!

The system expects you to lose against higher-rated players, especially if you're playing people that are on the leaderboard! So, no, your rating will not be affected. And there's always the chance that you'll win against one of them, which will do wonders for your rating!

Play lots of games – the more games you play, the more certain the system is about your skill. Win against people that are higher rated than you, and don't lose against people who are lower rated than you! Make sure you play a few games in each three day rating period, otherwise the system gets less certain about how good you are.

Prolific ratings are calculated every three days. Check the top of the Leaderboard page to see when the next ratings will be calculated.

It depends. If it was a server problem that meant you couldn't play your game, it will not be counted against you. However, we want to make sure people play games when they join them – there is nothing more annoying than finding out after 3 minutes that you have played against no-one! So you may be penalised if you drop out of a game that you have joined.

Every three days, your rating is calculated (see above). Everyone is put in their rating order, with the highest rating at the top, and then the top 5,000 players are given a ranking. 1st is the player with the higest ranking.

If you are in the top 5,000 players, you can see your ranking in the Statistics section of the home page. If you're not in the top 5,000, you won't have been ranked so your ranking will not be visible.

Check out the Prolific privacy policy.