Prolific is a simple word game you can play by yourself, with other people who are online, or with your friends. The object is to score the most points by making English words from adjacent letters in the Prolific grid.
Constructing Words
Words may only be constructed from letters that are next to each other, including diagonals. Each letter on the grid may only be used once in the creation of a word. Words must be at least three letters long. They must be words found in the CSW12 dictionary, and proper nouns (words that can only be spelled starting with a capital letter) are not allowed.
For example, in this grid, the word SEND is acceptable as the S in the bottom right hand corner of the grid links to the E (left), the N (diagonally up and right), and the D (diagonally up and left). Can you also see the word NAMED? How about STEMS and DENT?
You can't make the word TENT because, even though there are the letters in the grid, they don't link up.
Scoring
Points are awarded for correctly identifying a word that is in the dictionary, based on how long the word is:
| Word length | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | ... |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Points | 1 | 2 | 3 | 5 | 8 | 9 | 10 | ... |
| Bonus | 1 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 |
The bonus is applicable if you make the word using the bonus square, which is coloured yellow. Note that if there are multiple ways to make the word, one including the bonus square and one without, you may not get the bonus!
If you are the only person to have found that word, you receive full points.
If multiple people find the word, you get the points divided up between all of you and rounded down. For example, if two people find a 4 letter word, they get one point each. If three people find a 4 letter word, no-one gets any points.
If the game has the dictionary penalty enabled (on by default), you lose 2 points for any word spelled incorrectly.
Prolific Rating
After a few days of playing Prolific you might notice that you have a Prolific rating, visible from the Statistics section on the home page. Ratings are updated every three days based on the games you played in that period. Your rating is calculated by looking at the games you have played, who they were against, and who you did better or worse than. If you regularly beat players that are rated higher than you, your rating will go up. And, sadly, if you lose games to players rated lower than you, your rating will go down. The leaderboard shows the top 50 Prolific players.
Getting Started
Get started by joining a public game and playing with other people. It's realtime, so everyone plays at the same time. Once you've played a few games and are feeling comfortable with the rules, make a challenge game and invite your friends to play you.
Enjoy!