The complete rules

1. Getting started

Matches start from New Game on the Play tab. Pick a dictionary and a format — Casual or Blitz — at the top, then choose an opponent. You can have up to 20 games running at once.

2. Play modes

Alfa Kraft has two play modes. The core rules — placement, scoring, and powers — work the same in both modes. The differences are about who you play against and where the game runs.

3. Turn flow

A live turn stays with the active player until they place a word, pass, or run out of time. Buying powers can happen at any time, while using powers is part of the active turn.

In bot matches, the bot takes its turn automatically after yours.

1. Buy powers. Open the Shop button to buy powers. Purchased powers appear in the power bar above your hand. You can buy during either player's turn, up to the slot limit.
2. Use powers. Drag a power to the board, or tap a filled power slot to activate it. Tapping Swap enters swap mode; tapping Alfa Morf lets you pick a tile to turn into a wildcard; other powers are drag-and-drop on the board.
3. Swap if needed. Using Swap changes selected tiles without ending your turn. Alfa Morf likewise does not end your turn.
4. Rearrange your rack. Drag tiles to reorder them, or tap Shuffle to randomize the order.
5. Place a word or pass. A successful placement ends the turn after scoring. Passing ends it immediately.
6. Resolve the turn. You draw replacement tiles (if you placed 5 or more tiles, you draw one fewer tile and automatically receive a blank Alfa Power Tile instead). The turn passes to the opponent — unless the bag is empty and either player has just emptied their hand, in which case the match ends immediately and any tiles left in the other hand count against that player.

4. Placement rules

Every successful placement must follow the board rules below. These rules are the same in all play modes.

• Place at least one tile from your hand.
• All newly placed tiles must sit in one row or one column with no gaps inside the full word run.
• You cannot place on an occupied square.
• The first word of the match must cross the center starting square.
• Later words must connect to the existing board orthogonally.
• Every full word created by the move must be valid in the match dictionary.
• Single-tile placements are allowed only when they still create a valid word of at least two letters.
• One-letter runs do not count as completed words.
• Alfa Power Tiles ignore alignment rules and, by default, adjacency rules too. They can be placed on any empty valid square, but not on occupied squares or other Alfa Power squares. Cell bonuses (2× Letter, 3× Letter, 2× Word, 3× Word) are consumable: the Alfa Power Tile benefits from unused bonuses but not from bonuses already consumed by a previous tile. Normal tiles placed in the same turn as an Alfa Power Tile also skip the adjacency requirement.

5. Scoring and coins

Alfa Kraft scores the main word and every cross-word created by a placement, then adds them together into one turn score.

Scoring order

6. Powers

Powers are bought with coins and stored in your inventory until used successfully. Any player can buy powers at any time, but only the active player can use them. Using a power does not end the turn by itself. You can hold up to 7 powers at once.

Each power is either Tap (activate from the power slot) or Drag (drag from the power slot onto a board cell).

Costs shown below are the base price. Each repeat purchase of the same power costs 1.5× more (rounded up) than the previous one.

Base powers

Bonus-placement powers

These powers permanently add new bonus spaces to empty normal squares.

Important targeting and duration rules

• Bonus-placement powers require an empty normal square.
• The cell a Rubber wipes is out of play for the rest of that turn.
• On the first turn, Rubber can't target the center starting square — the opening word has to land there first.
• Drafted powers commit when you press Play — usually alongside a tile placement, but you can also commit powers on their own (see “Play only powers” above), which ends the turn and counts as a play, not a pass. Passing instead discards any drafted powers without applying them.

Alfa Power Tiles are fully immune to all powers. They cannot be targeted by Buff, Dice, Rubber, or any bonus-placement power. By default, they can also be placed freely without needing to connect to existing tiles on the board.

7. Turn deadline and rejoining

Casual

Each turn runs on a 7-day deadline. Take hours or days to think — as soon as you place a word or pass, the opponent's 7-day clock starts.

• If the deadline expires, you lose immediately.
• The timer stays hidden while more than 24 hours remain, and appears once you are inside the last day.
• Your game list follows the same rule: a card shows its countdown (for example, 05:12:44) only inside the last 24 hours.

Blitz

Blitz is the fast format. Each turn runs on a 120-second per-turn timer.

• If your turn timer runs out, the game auto-passes for you and the turn moves to your opponent.
• If you're away when your turn auto-passes (app closed or backgrounded), you get an inactivity strike. Three strikes and you forfeit the match — come back and play a turn to wipe your strikes.
• Limited to one active Blitz match at a time.
• Because both players have to be present, a Blitz invite expires after 10 minutes.

A Blitz match against a friend starts live: both players press Ready in the lobby, then a 3-second countdown runs before the first turn. If either player leaves or un-readies during it, the countdown stops and both ready flags clear.

Leaving and coming back

Bot matches run entirely on your device — if you close the app mid-game, your progress is saved locally and restored when you return.

In a Casual multiplayer match, you can leave and come back as often as you like while your move deadline is still running. The match ends only if the deadline expires or a player resigns. In a Blitz match, the per-turn timer keeps ticking while you're away — if you're absent when your turn ends, you collect an inactivity strike, and three strikes is a loss.

8. Endgame and rematch

The match ends as soon as one of the end conditions below is met.

How a match can end

• The tile bag is empty and either player empties their hand — the match ends immediately, and any tiles left in the other player’s hand are subtracted from their score. (Placing 5 or more tiles earns a blank Alfa Power Tile, so emptying the bag that way keeps your hand full and the game continues.)
• Consecutive passes: 3 consecutive passes end the game in both bot and multiplayer matches, with the winner decided by final score. The pass confirmation warns you as the count climbs: at two, your opponent can end the match on their turn; the third pass ends it.
• A player resigns. The opponent wins immediately.
• A player's 7-day move deadline expires — the opponent wins immediately.

Final score

• Start with the score you earned from played words.
• Add your endgame coin bonus: each coin becomes 1 extra point.
• Subtract the face value of the ordinary letters still in your hand.
• Leftover Alfa Power Tiles cost nothing on their own; instead they multiply that leftover-letter penalty. Their multipliers add together (a Pentagon adds none, a Hexagon is ×2, a Septagon is ×3), so a 1-point leftover letter with a Hexagon and a Septagon costs 1 × (2 + 3) = 5. Only Alfa Power Tiles left and no letters → 0.

If the final totals are tied, the match is a draw — there is no tiebreak.

Who plays first

In a multiplayer match, the challenged player (the one who accepted the invite or joined an open lobby) plays the first turn — you can act right away when you open a new game. On a rematch, the starting player alternates: whoever didn't start the previous game plays first in the next one. In a bot match, you (the human) always play first.

After the match

In multiplayer, either player can propose a rematch from the end screen. The offer waits for the other player — they don't have to be online, and closing the app doesn't withdraw it. You can cancel your own offer from the same screen, and an offer nobody answers expires after seven days.

The other player either accepts, which starts the new match right away, or declines. Declining is final for that match — the rematch cannot be offered again afterwards, though nothing stops either of you starting a fresh game.

Every match ends on a summary card — best word, longest word, words played, turns played, coins, and tiles placed — shown side by side for both players. Bot matches have no rematch, but the end screen offers Play again to start another match against the same bot with the same settings.

From the end screen you can also choose Explore Board to dismiss the result and pan around the finished board.

9. Rank

Your rank is a number that reflects your skill in a given dictionary. Every dictionary tracks its own separate rank — English, Swedish, Swedish (strict), Danish, and Norwegian. Everyone starts at 1200 and climbs (or falls) from there.

After every standard PvP match, your rank adjusts based on the result. Wins raise it, losses lower it, and bigger upsets move you faster. Bot matches do not affect your rank — bot opponents show their own rank so you can pick a difficulty that matches your level.

10. Common questions