+25 each
Every Special Word you submit adds 25 points on top of your base score. There is no cap beyond the five rows on the board, so a five-bonus board is worth 125 extra points.
Every point, explained
How Viisi scoring works
Win a Viisi puzzle and the game freezes a single authoritative score for that day. This page is the full rulebook behind that number — where the points come from, what takes them away, and how the result feeds your streak, your stats, and the leaderboards.
The Formula
One rule scores every win, in both modes. Nothing else adds or subtracts points.
20 pts
per word, credited as you go
+20
for finishing all 5 (+30 more in Expert)
+25
per bonus word found
−10
per hinted row
Your score
never below 0
Points are progressive: every word you legitimately complete is credited immediately, so a reveal or an Expert fail-out won't wipe out your points — you keep the points for every word you've already locked in, plus any bonus words found, minus hints. You just forfeit the completion bonus for not finishing all five. And a score can never go negative, so heavy hint use floors at zero rather than digging a hole.
Words & Completion
How much your words are worth, whether you finish the puzzle or not. The mode is locked to the puzzle when you start it, so changing the setting mid-game never changes what a word or a completion is worth.
20 points per word
Credited the instant you lock in a correct word — before you've finished the puzzle.
120 points
A full Classic win: five completed words (100) plus the +20 completion bonus.
150 points
A full Expert win: the same 120, plus an extra +30 for finishing in Expert Mode.
Partial credit
Reveal, or fail out of Expert Mode, and you keep the words you'd already completed — only the
completion bonus is lost.
Bonus Words
Some puzzles hide Special Words. Find one and its tiles flash gold.
Counted once
The bonus is awarded per distinct word. Matching is case- and whitespace-insensitive, so a word can never be double-counted.
Never hinted
A hint will never prefill a Special Word — not as its first choice and not as a fallback. Any puzzle that hides one ships with enough non-special answers to guarantee it. Bonus points have to be earned.
Game Hints
- After 3 valid words are found you have a hint available to use for the 4th and 5th word.
- Each hint costs 10 points and it reveals the first 2 tiles (letters) of the new row.
- Two hints, maximum. The hint button only unlocks once three rows are locked in, which leaves rows four and five — so a Classic game can lose at most 20 points to hints.
- Hints are not available in
- Hints cost you the Hint-Free badge and the hint-free leaderboards, but they do not cost you the win, the streak, or a One Shot badge.
Reading the Score Card
The card on the win screen shows the same components the score was built from — never a re-estimate.
5 Words: 100 points
Solve Bonus: 20 points
Bonus Words Found 1: 25 points
Hints Used 1: -10 points
Score: 135 points!
Solve Time: 04m12s
Words line
Always shown — 20 points for every word you completed, whether or not you finished all five.
Solve Bonus / Expert Win
Appear only when you finish all 5 words: +20 for completing, plus +30 more if you finished in Expert
Mode.
Hints / Bonus lines
Only appear when the count is above zero, so a clean card stays short.
Solve Time
Displayed under the total for reference. It is never scored.
The breakdown is deliberately strict: it is only drawn when every line can be proven from the saved record and the lines add up to the authoritative total. An older save that cannot account for its own score shows the result without a breakdown rather than inventing a line.
Solve Time
Timing is tracked separately from scoring — it never adds or removes a single point.
Active play only
The clock runs while you are on the board and pauses the moment you leave the game or send the app to the background. Walking away does not wreck your time.
Frozen at the win
Your time stops and locks when the fifth word lands, alongside the score. Shown as 04m12s, or
42s for a sub-minute solve.
Feeds your stats
Every timed legitimate win contributes to your average and fastest solve times, split by Classic and Expert. Beat your previous best and the win screen flags a new Fastest Solve.
Replays Never Overwrite
Reset a solved puzzle and play it again as many times as you like — the original result is immutable.
- Your first legitimate completion freezes a permanent record: score, mode, hint count, bonus words, invalid guesses and solve time.
- Finishing a replay in the same sitting shows a temporary card labelled Replay Score, so you can see how the fresh run went.
- Leave the screen and come back and the original saved result is what you see again.
- Replays are never added to your lifetime score, win count, win rate, streak or solve times.
- Resetting a puzzle you never legitimately solved does not resurrect it as a win — but it also cannot damage a result that was already frozen.
Win-Screen Achievements
Called out on the result screen the moment you earn them.
First Perfect Score
Your first win that hits the maximum a board can give — full base plus every Special Word on it.
Fastest Solve
A timed win quicker than every timed win before it.
New Longest Streak
A daily streak that passes your previous personal best.
One Shot
Solved start to finish without leaving the board, backgrounding the app, resetting, or revealing. Hints do not disqualify it — walking away does.
Badges & Leaderboards
The milestones your results unlock, and where they get ranked.
🔥 5 Streak
Five daily puzzles solved on five consecutive days.
🏆 25 Wins
Twenty-five lifetime legitimate wins, daily or archive.
⚡️ Hint-Free
A win with zero hinted rows.
🎯 One Shot
A clean single-session solve — no reset, no reveal, no wandering off.
Game Center
Fastest hint-free win, longest daily streak, total wins, and total hint-free wins.
Sync
Results, badges and stats follow the same Apple ID across your devices.