pod — Play or Die: a free word-ladder vocabulary game by RapidLoop AI. Change one letter, make a new word, learn what it means, and grow your vocabulary while you out-play the pod AI.

🏆 World Ranking

Ranked by best score · ⏱ = avg real time per answer in that game (pauses count) — faster breaks a tie.

📚 My Words

🎖️ Badges

How to play pd

🎯 The duel

• pod drops a starting word. On your turn, change letters (up to your level's limit) to make a new, valid, unused word and hit Send — then pod replies, and you go back and forth.
• Every word is a real dictionary word with a meaning shown on its bubble, so you learn as you play. Proper nouns count too.
• It's an endless survival duel: corner pod (no legal word left for it) and you earn a 🏆 reward — +3 points, a ⚡ lifeline, and a fresh word drops in. The duel continues! Your game ends when your clock runs out, you get cornered, or you surrender.

🔤 Six levels

• Easy — 4 letters · 2.5 min · change 1  ·  Medium — 5 letters · 3 min · change 2
• Hard — 6 letters · 4 min · change 3  ·  Super Hard — 7 letters · 5 min · change 4
• 🔥 Insane — 8 letters · 6 min · change 5 — and every word is worth 2× points.
• 💀 Nightmare — 9 letters · 7 min · change 6 — worth 3× points, and pod plays at full strength from the very first move.
• Tap a tile to edit it; change more than the limit and the earliest edit snaps back.
• On Easy and Medium only, tiles glow green when your word is valid and red when it isn't. From Hard up there's no glow — you commit blind and find out on Send.

⏱ The clock

• The clock runs on your turn only. It flashes every 30s and turns red in the last 10 seconds.
• ⏸ The pause button is free — pause on-screen any time, no penalty.
• 🕵️ Leaving the game mid-turn (another app or tab) does not pause it: the clock keeps running while you're away, plus a small growing penalty each time. A quick glance under 2 seconds is forgiven — but no sneaking off to look words up.

🪙 Coins & hints

• Every correct word earns coins — the faster you answer and the harder the level, the more you get.
• 💡 Spend 100 🪙 and pod reveals one letter of a real next word. Buying again reveals more of that same word, up to a small per-level cap.

🏅 Scoring & bonuses

• 🟢 +1 point for every valid word you play (+2 on 🔥 Insane, +3 on 💀 Nightmare) — and your best streak is tracked.
• ⚡ Lifeline — earned each time you corner pod. Tap the ⚡ in the score bar to swap the board for a fresh random word and reset your clock — a rescue when you're stuck. Banked for the whole session.
• ⭐ Power word — play a rare word pod wouldn't expect and earn a +1-letter token (plus bonus 🪙). Tap ⭐ +1 to change one extra letter for a single move. But beware: power words make pod focus harder.
• 🏳️ Give up anytime — pod gets one last answer (you lose), or it's a draw if pod is cornered too.

🏆 Fair play & ranking

• A repeated or invalid word never ends the game — it just shakes and won't send. But hammering wrong Sends in a quick burst locks the Send button for a few seconds (and the clock keeps ticking).
• The more you win, the tougher pod plays. Every finished game is posted to the world ranking for its level — best score wins; a faster average answer time breaks ties (pauses count).