When we test a Zanagrams board, we are not checking whether the words exist. We already know they exist. We are checking what the board looks like after the first one comes out. A good opening makes two other words obvious. A pretty opening, the long word you spotted across the middle, can leave the corners exactly as knotted as they were. How to play Zanagrams has the rules. This is only about that first path.
Sixteen letters, joined by bridges. You drag a path, or you type once you can see the word. Four letters is enough. A letter stays on the board until every word that needs it has been found, so the first success often changes less than you hope. That is not the board being stubborn. It is the board telling you that letter still has a job.
Start where a word has few places to hide
E and S will connect to almost anything, which makes them useless as a place to begin. J, Q, X, Z, and the awkward pairs, will not. Build out from those. You are not looking for the cleverest word on the board. You are looking for the word that is almost forced, usually a short one, often tucked in a corner you have decided to come back to.
Coming back is how a region stays frozen. If a corner has not changed after two finds, there is a four-letter word in it, and it is using letters you are saving for a longer word that does not need them yet. Clear the short one. On our boards the short word is often the hinge. We put it there because a board that only opens from one famous-looking path is a board that feels unfair when you do not see that path, and a board that opens from a small honest word is a board you can actually start.
Trust the letters that leave
When a path is finished with, the letters that nothing else needs fall away. Believe that. The puzzle is built so found words clear the way, not so you have to hold the whole tangle until the end. If you are still staring at a letter you were sure was “used up”, it is still in a word. Walk from it again, including the short step you skipped because it felt too small.
A wrong drag you lift your finger out of is cheap. A story you keep — that the Q has to live in the long word, that the corner can wait — is not. Typing is useful once you have a candidate and do not want to trace every bridge. It is useless if you have not looked at which letters are actually joined.
The larger board is the same opening
Zanagrams Master is twenty-five letters and a thicker knot. The first minute is mostly looking, and that is the correct use of the minute. Do not try to see the whole thing. Pick the letter that cannot hide, walk until a short word offers itself, and let the board get quieter. The same note applies, just for longer. If you want a skeleton instead of a hidden word, Word Snake shows you the ends and asks you to draw the route.