Lily Hopper: Word Ladder

Lily Hopper is two word games on one frog pond: a daily word-ladder race against the clock, and Pond Sweep, a puzzle of lettered lily pads to take at your own pace.

TODAY'S POND
A frog hops from one word to another one letter at a time — every hop a real word — across lily pads laid out as two routes, a short risky one and a long safe one. One pond a day, and everyone gets the same one. Take the shortcut through rarer words or the steady route through safer ones — or leave the pads altogether, because any real word is a legal hop. A hops-to-go counter tells you whether a hop helped without giving anything away, and if you land in a dead end, hop back.

PRACTICE POND
Endless ladders, just for fun, when today's is done.

NEW: POND SWEEP
Rather take your time? Hop from pad to pad — up, down, left or right — to spell a word, and every pad behind the frog sinks, all but the last. Your next word starts where you landed. Sink every pad, then hop onto the dock. Two hundred lily pads wait in eight ponds, from sunny Lily Shallows to Thunderhead Deep, with four short lessons to start. Finish in fewer words for three stars, sweep a whole pond for bonus XP, and if you get stuck, the dragonfly will show you a word.

HINTS FROM THE DRAGONFLY
Stuck on a ladder? Three tiers of hint: which letter to change, which letter to use, or the whole word. The first one is free.

A POND THAT GROWS
Every ladder you cross and every lily pad you sweep earns XP. Level up and your own pond fills in — seventeen things to unlock at set levels, from cattails to a lantern, each with its own idle motion.

KEEP THE STREAK
A calendar of every pond you've crossed, your best time, and how often you found the best route. Share the shape of your run — the hops and the time, never the words — so friends can race the same pond.

PLAY GAMES
Sign in to rank on today's board, best streak and total XP, and to earn twelve achievements. Optional — the game is the same without it.

Free, no accounts, playable offline (ads and Play Games need a connection). Ad-supported: an ad at launch, an ad now and then between practice ponds and between lily pads, and optional rewarded video for the bigger hints — never before or during today's pond, and never required to play. If you'd rather not see ads, two optional one-time purchases switch them off: Remove Ads, or Founder, which also gives your frog a golden crown and your pond a Founder's lantern. No subscriptions. Reminders are local and opt-in.

A word ladder is Lewis Carroll's Doublets (1879): change one letter at a time, every step a real word. There is no hidden answer and no coloured tiles — both ends of the ladder are in view, and the puzzle is the path between them.