What's my best strategy for this word game?

July 9, 2015 12:13 PM

I've become hooked on a word computer game that effectively mimics the game show Lingo. You have five chances to guess a mystery word where all you know is the first letter. With each guess, you are shown how many letters from your guess are in the mystery word, and which ones, if any, are in the right location. Help me maximize my strategy for my first guess!

For each letter, I've come up with words that I use for my standard first guess to try to maximize the usefulness for the next round of guessing. My strategy is to get as many vowels as possible in the first word, particularly O and U. If the first letter can be followed by a consonant, I'll try to use those consonants too. So, for F, I will try to include an L or an R in my first guess. It's also helpful to use an S in the first guess, since there are often plurals and it's good to know that from the beginning. And I don't want to use any double letters in the first guess.

There are some letters that I've gotten really good first guesses for. B, D, H, L, M, R, and S all allow me to use the pattern _OUSE, which provides a lot of information in just one guess. FLOUR for F is also a good one, since both L and R can follow the F, and CURIO for C also allows for three vowels.

However, I feel like there might be better first guesses for the rest of the letters, but I've gotten stuck coming up with alternatives. Here's my list of what I've been using:

a = aisle
c = curio
e = envoy
f = flour
g = grout
i = inset
j = joust
k = knife
n = nouns
o = onset
p = pours
q = quote
t = tours
u = until
v = vouch
w = would
y = yours
z = zones

Do you have suggestions for better first guesses than the ones I'm using here?

(For the curious, this is a mini-game within Popcap's Bookworm Adventures 2.)

posted by Neely O'Hara to Sports, Hobbies, & Recreation (6 answers total)

Best answer: Interesting puzzle. If you just want as many vowels in your first word (especially O and U), I have a few alternate suggestions:

O -> OUTER
I -> IRONS
I -> IRATE (3 vowels, but no O or U)
U -> UNION (3 vowles, but doubled N)
posted by mhum at 12:53 PM on July 9, 2015

So, you get five guesses, and you can get four different responses at each guess. So there should be a strategy that guarantees correct answers as long as the range of possibilities is under 4^5=1024. Looking at the unix word list, I see 533 five-letter words starting with "s", and that seems to be the toughest letter.

So, although I don't have a strategy for you, I'm pretty certain a 100% safe strategy exists. It would take the form of tree of words to test at each round, and would branch at each node depending on the number of matching letters. Once found, I think this strategy could be written down on a page or two.
posted by paper chromatographologist at 1:02 PM on July 9, 2015

Best answer: Here are some strategies I've come up with on the fly.

You know the first letter. Don't waste a letter by asking about it.

The most common letters in English words are E, A, I, O, N, R, T, S. Assume you will have at least two of those, probably three.

I would think getting the second letter would be very helpful. If your word starts with a:

B, F, or G then consider a word _L_ _ _ or _ R _ _ _

With D consider _ R _ _ _. Don't waste your time with unlikely choices (DW)

with T or W consider a word with _ H _ _ _ or _ R _ _ _

with C consider _ H _ _ _, _ L _ _ _ _ or _ R _ _ _


Here is a list of five letter words with four vowels.

AALII (small Hawaiian tree)
ADIEU (a farewell remark)
AECIA (plural of aecium, part of a rust fungus)
AERIE (the nest of a bird of prey)
AIOLI (garlic mayonnaise)
AQUAE (plural of aqua)
AREAE (alternate plural of area)
AUDIO (sound recording)
AURAE (alternate plural of aura)
AUREI (plural of aureus, gold coin of ancient Rome)
COOEE (a shout used in Australia)
EERIE (mysterious, spooky)
LOOIE (a lieutenant)
LOUIE (alternate of looie)
MIAOU (meow)
OIDIA (plural of oidium, a fungal spore)
OORIE (alternate of ourie)
OURIE (shivering with cold)
QUEUE (a line of people or vehicles)
URAEI (plural of uraeus, ancient Egyptian sacred asp)
ZOEAE (plural of zoea, larva of a crab)
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 1:08 PM on July 9, 2015

If you get an X, just use your five guesses on the only five possibilities!

Xebec Xenia Xenix Xerox Xhosa

(Sorry, unlike dances_with_sneetches, I'm too lazy to include definitions.)
posted by paper chromatographologist at 1:18 PM on July 9, 2015

Okay, I came across this game. Don't know if it is an exact copy, but I got an idea from it. It seems to me that you want to make words that will cover as many new letters as possible, while rearranging the letters that you have correct, but not in the proper place.

So, you would want your guess words to cover the most common letters as fast as possible. E, A, I, O, N, R, T, S, L, U, D

For example.

C _ _ _ _ _ CURIE
If no hits, then
COALS
By now, you should have at least one vowel and probably one additional consonant.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 6:22 PM on July 9, 2015

Best answer: Robert McKee, posted about his experience on the U.S. version of Lingo.

He's got photos of his list of words. He used the same basic strategy--expose the vowels and then the most common consonants first.

Also, you can watch him completely win the Lingo bonus round.
posted by melvinwang at 4:32 PM on July 10, 2015