How to Play Shuffalo

Shuffalo is a daily anagram word game from The New Yorker. The puzzle starts simple and gets harder with each step, building from a four-letter word all the way to a nine-letter Bonus Round.

The basic rules

1. You start with a wheel of four letters. Form a four-letter word using all of them.
2. Once you solve it, a fifth letter is added to the wheel. Form a five-letter word using all five.
3. The chain continues: six letters, seven, eight.
4. The puzzle ends with the nine-letter Bonus Round, which uses every letter you've collected.

Tips for solving faster

• Look for repeating letter clusters from the previous round — the new letter often slots in cleanly.
• Try common prefixes and suffixes (RE-, UN-, -ING, -ED, -ER, -TION).
• If you're stuck, you can use the Hint button to reveal one letter at a time. Hints don't end the game, just affect your final rating.
• The Bonus Round word is optional — the puzzle counts as complete once you finish the eight-letter step.

Where to play

Shuffalo is published daily by The New Yorker. You can play the current puzzle (and any previous day's) at newyorker.com/puzzles-and-games-dept/shuffalo. It's free.

Stuck on a step? Find the puzzle's date on our homepage for the complete word ladder.