How to Play Chainle: Rules, Scoring and Strategy
Everything you need to know about Chainle — the five round types, how the similarity scoring works, and strategies that get you closer to 5,000.
What is Chainle?
Chainle is a free daily word-association game at chainle.io. Each day everyone gets the same five rounds, and in every round you have to find the word that sits in the middle of a set of clue words — for example, pizza and pasta are linked by tomato.
It was made by the younger brother of the creator of Krillion, and launched on 20 August 2026. Every past puzzle is still playable from the game's archive.
The five rounds
Rounds 1–3 are two-word bridges: one word that belongs with both clues. Round 4 is a three-word bridge, where your word has to fit three clues at once. Round 5 is a closest connection: a single clue, and you want the word nearest to it in meaning.
You get exactly one guess per round, so there is no trial and error — think before you press Link.
How scoring works
There is no single right answer. After you guess, Chainle measures how close your word is in meaning to every clue and draws a chain from each clue toward your word. The game also ranks your word against roughly 31,000 others.
Hitting the game's strongest link earns the full 1,000 points; near misses still score well. Our 4,076 on puzzle #45 beat 99% of that day's players, which shows how forgiving the scoring is. When we played puzzle #45, 'software' for program + designer ranked #4 and scored 960, while the strongest link was 'project'. A word that fits only one clue scores very little — 'travel' for destination + gap + constitution ranked #3,053 and earned 435.
The maximum is 5,000 points per day.
Strategy tips
Think of compound phrases first: cotton mill and cotton pants, pizza delivery, a hospital ward. If one word forms a natural phrase with every clue, it is usually the strongest link.
For the closest-connection round, give a plain synonym (element → component, settlement → agreement, unit → division). Related concepts score far lower than true synonyms.
The three-word bridge is the hardest round. Look for the one meaning that all three clues share rather than a broad theme — 'passage' links destination, gap and constitution because each has a passage, while 'travel' only fits one.
Concrete everyday words beat rare or technical ones. The game's vocabulary is built from common English, so a simple word is more likely to be the strongest link.
Chainle's five rounds
| Round | Type | Clues | Example |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1–3 | Two-word bridge | 2 | pizza + pasta → tomato |
| 4 | Three-word bridge | 3 | bank + flow + bridge → river |
| 5 | Closest connection | 1 | violin → cello |
Our play of Chainle #45 (October 3, 2026)
| Clues | Our guess | Rank | Points | Strongest link |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| mill + pants | cotton | #1 | 1,000 | cotton |
| program + designer | software | #4 | 960 | project |
| assistant + top | manager | #54 | 681 | head |
| destination + gap + constitution | travel | #3,053 | 435 | passage |
| element | component | #1 | 1,000 | component |