Headlines takes three real headlines from the day’s news and scrambles their words across three rows. Each row is one headline. The number of slots in a row does not change. You put the words back by tapping one, then another, to swap them. You are reconstructing language, not sitting a current-affairs exam. You do not need to have read the story. You need to hear what a headline sounds like.
There is a short tutorial if you want the colours demonstrated before you spend a swap on the real board. A fresh set of stories lands every day. Yesterday’s puzzle stays in the archive, which is useful precisely because the material is dated: a headline from last Tuesday is still a sentence, even after the news has moved on.
How a round works
- Three headlines are scrambled together. Each row is one of them.
- Tap one word, then another, to swap them.
- Green means the right word in the right slot. It locks. In high contrast, that colour is orange.
- Orange means the word belongs in this headline, but in the wrong slot. In high contrast, that colour is blue.
- Grey means the word does not belong in this headline.
- The puzzle can be solved in 10 swaps. You get 20.
The spare ten swaps are for exploration, not for thrashing. A grey word should leave the row. An orange word should stay in the row and move. A green word should be left alone. Tapping a locked word again is how people spend swaps they did not need to spend.
Grey can also mean there is no unmatched copy of that word left for this row. Headlines repeat small words. If “to” is already sitting correctly, a second “to” may go grey because this headline is full, not because the word is nonsense.
How to read a scrambled front page
Group the words by story before you try to order them. Two rows can both look almost like English while each is holding a stranger from the other story. The orange words are telling you which vocabulary belongs together. Ordering a row that still contains a grey word is slower than parking that word in the row where it turns orange or green.
Then read for headline grammar. These sentences are terse. A number wants a noun. A verb wants to sit near its subject. Words like “after” and “as” want a clause, not a full stop. Headlines are allergic to “the” in places a normal sentence would demand it, and they front-load the interesting word. If a row starts with a preposition and hides the name at the end, it is probably still in the wrong order even when every word is orange.
Use the budget. Ten swaps is the clean solve, not a speed limit you have to hit. Twenty is enough to test a theory, undo it, and still finish. What it is not enough for is swapping at random and hoping the colours sort themselves out.
Where it sits
Headlines is a word puzzle that happens to use the news. Tomorrow’s set will be different stories, not a sequel. If you like the swap and the three colours but want dictionary prose instead of a front page, Definitions is the same gesture on different English. Middle Word asks you to place a single word in the alphabet. Crowdle asks what a crowd would say, which is a different kind of “today”.