How to Play BORROW

1. Move letters between words. Each move takes one letter out of one word and puts it into another.
2. Both words must remain real words. You can’t invent letters, throw any away, or rearrange a word freely.
3. Make every word match its clue. The letters on the board are exactly the letters of the answers.

The simplest example: move the E from PLANE to STAR. PLANE becomes PLAN (“A strategy”) and STAR becomes STARE (“Look fixedly”) — one move, both words right.

Tap a letter to pick it up, then tap the word that should receive it — or drag it there. Tapping the left or right half of a letter chooses which side the new letter lands on. If that exact spot wouldn’t make a word, BORROW finds the place in that word where the letter does fit.

Only when a letter fits nowhere is the move refused, and BORROW says why — for example, “The P doesn’t fit anywhere in STAR — every spot makes a non-word.” Refused moves never count.

Undo moves a letter straight back and counts as a move. Shuffle only reorders the words on screen; it never moves a letter. After every move the header tells you whether you’re on the right track.

BORROW’s own solver checks every puzzle before it ships, so “perfect” — solving in the fewest possible moves — is a real number, not a guess. Some puzzles need detours: a letter parked in another word for a move or two before it can reach home.

Hints climb one step at a time, so you can take only as much help as you need:

Explain this clue rephrases a clue and tells you how long its answer is. One hint covers one move: ask again on the same move and it gets more specific, all the way to the exact move, at no extra cost. The daily puzzle allows three hints by default (Settings → Hints can make them unlimited); Practice and the Journey are always unlimited. Took a wrong turn? Undo puts the letter back, but you never have to: every puzzle can still be solved from wherever you are, and hints start from your board. If you’d rather see the answer, the ••• menu can reveal the solution — a revealed daily doesn’t count toward your streak.

Every hint is written by BORROW itself. On devices with Apple Intelligence, Explain this clue can paraphrase the clue on the device; BORROW checks it gives nothing away, and with Apple Intelligence off you get BORROW’s own explanation.

Everyone plays the same puzzle on the same date. It changes at midnight where you are and works offline. The week builds from gentle to expert:

Solve on consecutive days to build a streak (hints are fine; revealing isn’t). When you finish, share a card with your moves, hints and time — never the words or the clues. A brand-new player whose first daily is Hard or Expert is offered a few Journey warm-ups first.

Each level opens when you finish the one before it. Six chapters climb steadily:

Earn one star for solving a level, two for solving it in the fewest possible moves, and three for doing that without hints. Replay any level for a better result; replays can only add stars. Levels 1–60 are free; BORROW Plus opens the rest.

Choose Easy, Normal, Hard or Expert, or pick one of seventeen themes — food, animals, math, music and more — where every answer belongs to the theme. Find a Puzzle searches for a fresh surprise. Three new Practice puzzles a day are free. BORROW Plus makes Practice unlimited and adds Build Fresh: ask for any topic, such as “dogs” or “garden tools.” On supported devices it searches for related words and clues, then BORROW checks them and proves a new puzzle solvable before play. If it cannot fit the request, it tells you.

BORROW is free to play. The daily puzzle, streaks, stats, sharing, hints and all of Game Center are free for everyone, always. BORROW Plus is a single optional USD 4.99 purchase, not a subscription, and it works for your whole Family Sharing group. It opens all 600 Journey levels, unlimited Practice, Build Fresh, Solution Replay (after you finish a puzzle, watch its shortest solve move by move, with every detour explained), the daily archive of every past puzzle, and 13 more themes. Sunset, Arctic, Neon and Synthwave appear first, followed by Desert, Aurora, Blossom, Autumn, Ember, Lavender, Snow, Retro and Candy.

Archive puzzles count in your statistics but never in your streak or on Game Center, so a streak is always built one day at a time. Hints are never for sale. Already bought Plus? It comes back on its own on a new device; if not, tap Restore Purchases on the BORROW Plus screen or in Settings.

Signed in to Game Center, you can rank on three daily leaderboards — Today’s BORROW, Fastest Perfect Solve and Fewest Moves — and on all-time boards for perfect solves, your longest streak and Journey stars. Today’s BORROW is your time plus 30 seconds for each move over perfect and 60 seconds for each hint, so a clean solve always beats a helped one.

After solving, Challenge a Friend (iOS 26) sends them to the same puzzle to beat your score. Thirteen achievements track your progress, from First Borrow to Mountaineer. Game Center is optional: the whole game works without it.

Choose a theme and light or dark appearance; turn sound, haptics, animation and right-track feedback on or off; set a daily reminder. BORROW supports VoiceOver — every tile names its letter and position, and letters can be placed exactly — along with Dynamic Type, high contrast and reduced motion.

Questions? Visit BORROW Support.