Crossclimb

Crossclimb is a word ladder puzzle: you solve a short stack of clues, and the answers form a ladder in which each word differs from its neighbour by a single letter. It is a quick, satisfying word game popularised as one of LinkedIn’s daily games; this is a free version in the same spirit.

How does the ladder work?

Picture a short ladder of words, one per rung. Read from top to bottom and each word is almost identical to the one above — exactly one letter has changed, in the same position-by-position sense (COLD → CORD → WORD). Your job is to match every clue to the right word; because the words form a one-letter chain, each answer you place gives a strong hint about its neighbours.

Work the clues you are sure of first, then use the one-letter rule to climb up and down: once a rung is filled, its neighbours can differ by only a single letter, which narrows the remaining words fast.

What is the quickest way in?

• Anchor the easy clues. Place the words you recognise immediately — each one fixes a rung.
• Climb by one letter. A filled rung tells you its neighbour changes in just one spot; scan the bank for the word that fits.
• Watch the highlight. The changed letter lights up between filled rungs, so a placement that would change more than one letter is a sign it belongs elsewhere.
• Use the bank. Every word is used exactly once, so placing one removes it as an option for the others.

A four-letter ladder shows the idea: COLD → CORD → WORD → WARD → WARM, where each step changes a single letter.

How do the clues and the ladder combine?

Suppose the clues include “low in temperature”, “a single unit of language” and “gently hot”. Cold and warm are easy to place at the ends, and word drops into the middle. The one-letter rule then fills the gaps: between cold and word sits cord (cold → cord → word), and between word and warm sits ward. Each clue you solve plus the single-letter constraint pins the next rung, until the whole ladder is climbed.

This page offers Crossclimb at two sizes — an Easy ladder of four-letter words and a Hard ladder of five-letter words — with longer words giving trickier clues and more possible neighbours.

• Easy uses short, familiar four-letter words, so the ladder is quick to climb and ideal for learning the one-letter rule.
• Hard steps up to five-letter words, where the clues are a little tougher and the single-letter changes are harder to spot.

Tap New for a fresh ladder at either difficulty, or play the shared Daily to climb the same ladder as everyone else and keep a streak.

If you enjoy a daily Crossclimb, this is a free word ladder puzzle in the same spirit — solve the clues, change one letter at a time, and climb. It is an independent puzzle and is not affiliated with or endorsed by LinkedIn.

The word ladder itself is a classic invented by Lewis Carroll in 1877, in which you transform one word into another a single letter at a time. If you like word and logic games, it sits naturally beside the other daily puzzles here such as Queens, Tango and Zip — different mechanics, the same quick-solve, one-a-day appeal.

Crossclimb is a light, moreish word game — a handful of clues, a clever one-letter ladder, and the quiet click of each rung falling into place. A single ladder is a minute-or-two solve, perfect for a coffee break or a daily streak.

It rewards vocabulary and a little lateral thinking, and because the one-letter rule keeps every step fair, climbing the ladder always feels earned. Play the shared Daily for the same ladder as everyone else, then branch into the logic puzzles in the rest of the collection.