DETOUR
No. —
Closed
From
Stop 1
Stop 2
Stop 3
Stop 4
Stop 5
To

10 seconds a stop · 3 lives · new route at midnight

Detour, the daily word association game

Get from one word to another in exactly five linked stops. The three most obvious stepping stones are closed, you have ten seconds a word, and every link is scored out of 100. A new route leaves every midnight.

How to play

  1. Start from the first word and type a word that links to it: a meaning, a phrase, a fact or a name.
  2. Keep linking, one stop at a time, until you have five stops. Your fifth stop must also link to the last word.
  3. Avoid the three closed roadblocks and beat the ten-second clock. Each mistake of that kind costs one of your three lives.

Full rules and examples

Scoring

Every link scores up to 100 points by how close the two words are, like Contexto. Green Direct links score 68 to 100, gold Scenic links 47 to 67 and violet Wild stretches 10 to 46. Your route score is the average of all six links, and your time to spare is shared alongside it.

Questions

What is Detour?

Detour is a free daily word association game. You get a start word and an end word and must connect them in exactly five stops, where every stop links to the one before it. Three obvious words are closed as roadblocks, and you have ten seconds for each word.

How is Detour different from Wordle and Contexto?

Wordle is about spelling a hidden word and Contexto is about guessing one secret word by meaning. In Detour there is no single answer: you build your own route between two words, and every link is scored out of 100 for how close the connection is, Contexto style. Two players can both win with completely different routes.

How does scoring work?

Every link scores 10 to 100 points: the closer the two words are, the more points. Direct links score 68 to 100, scenic links 47 to 67 and wild stretches 10 to 46. Your route score is the average of all six links. Your time to spare is shared too.

When is there a new puzzle?

A new Detour route goes live every day at midnight in your own time zone, so everyone plays the same route on the same date.

Can I play more than one puzzle a day?

Yes. Once you have finished the daily route, practice routes are unlimited. Practice results are not shared and do not affect your streak.

What counts as a link?

Meanings, common phrases, facts and even names: bee to honey, fire to truck, spider to eight, bear to Pooh. A word that does not link costs you a little time but never a life.

Is Detour free? Do I need an account?

Detour is free to play in any browser on phone or computer, with nothing to install and no account. Your streak and statistics are saved only on your own device.

How to play

Get from the first word to the last word in exactly five stops.

  1. 1Each stop must link to the one before it: a meaning, a phrase, a fact, even a name. BEE → HONEY, FIRE → TRUCK, SPIDER → EIGHT, BEAR → POOH.
  2. 2Your fifth stop must link to the last word too.
  3. 3You get 10 seconds a stop. The three closed words are roadblocks. Typing one, or running out of time, costs a life. You have three.

Example

FromSun
Stop 1Beach55
Stop 2Sand96
Stop 3Castle55
Stop 4Queen72
Stop 5Crown90
ToKing90
Route score76

Scoring

Every link scores up to 100: the closer the link, the more points. Your route score is the average of all six links. Derail, and the links you never reached count as zero.

Direct68–100 · the link most people would make
Scenic47–67 · clever, or a known phrase or fact
Wild10–46 · a stretch, but it holds

A word that doesn't link costs no life, only time. Speed doesn't change your score, but your time to spare is shared too. A new train leaves every midnight, and once you've played it, practice routes are unlimited.

Settings

20 seconds a stop instead of 10. Your result is marked ⏳ when shared.

Flap clacks, the arrival chime, buzzers.

Credits

Word links use ConceptNet Numberbatch and ConceptNet 5 (CC BY-SA 4.0, by Robyn Speer and the ConceptNet team), word frequencies from wordfreq (CC BY-SA 4.0), and WordNet (Princeton University). Our compressed word-link data is shared under CC BY-SA 4.0. Typeface: Barlow by Jeremy Tribby (OFL).

Detour keeps your streak and stats on this device only. No accounts, no cookies.