Typing Speed - Type Falling Words Before They Drop

How to Play Typing Speed

Words drift down from the top of the play area, and you have to type each one before it drops off the bottom. There is no need to press Enter or Space - a word disappears the instant you type its last letter. Your typing locks onto the lowest falling word that starts with the letters you have entered, and those letters turn green. If no word matches, your input clears, so you start that word again from the beginning. Backspace removes one letter, Escape clears everything you have typed, and capitals don't matter. Every word that escapes past the bottom costs one of your five lives, and losing all five ends the run; press Enter or Play Again to restart.

The game starts as soon as the page loads, with the first word arriving after about two seconds. There is a single mode that gets harder as you score: each word you clear makes new words fall a little faster and shortens the gap before the next one appears, from one word every two seconds at the start to one roughly every two-thirds of a second once you reach 40. Your score is the number of words cleared. Your best is saved in this browser and, when you are signed in, sent to the leaderboard. On a phone or tablet, tap the play area to bring up the on-screen keyboard.

Strategy Tips

Clear the lowest word first - a word near the bottom is about to cost you a life, while one near the top has many seconds left. Words turn red as they approach the danger line, which is your cue to deal with them now.
Never press Space between words - typing-test habits are hard to break, but a space matches no word, so it wipes whatever you had typed. Pressed mid-word, it costs you the progress on that word.
Accuracy beats raw speed - a single wrong letter throws away all progress on the current word. Typing steadily without errors is faster than racing and retyping.
Read the next word while you finish this one - with your fingers on the current word, let your eyes move to the next target so you can start it the moment the first one vanishes.
Watch for shared first letters - when two words start the same way, the lock goes to the one that appeared first, which is usually but not always the lower one. Glance at which word lights up after your first letter.

Read the full Typing Speed guide →

Playing Typing Speed on PlayVersusAI

Words fall through a 600 by 500 play area, starting at a random point across the top. The vocabulary is a list of just under 200 common English words, all lowercase and between one and nine letters long — "a", "the" and "people" alongside "important" and "different" — so this is a test of fast, clean typing on familiar words rather than of spelling. Your typing locks onto the lowest falling word that starts with the letters you have entered, and the matched letters turn green. If no word on screen fits what you have typed, your input clears; Backspace removes one letter and Escape wipes the input entirely. A word disappears the moment its last letter is typed, with no Enter or Space required.

Words turn red as they approach the dashed danger line, then pass through the input bar and count as missed once they fall past the bottom edge. Five misses end the run. The game starts by itself when the page loads and freezes if you switch to another tab, picking up where it left off when you return. On a phone or tablet, tap the play area to open the on-screen keyboard. Your score is the number of words cleared; the end screen also shows the speed level you reached.

What's on This Page

High-score table — highest scores are ranked on the global leaderboard when you are signed in.
No account required — the full game is playable as a guest, on desktop, tablet or phone.

There is one mode with a built-in ramp. A new word appears every two seconds at the start, and that gap shrinks with every word you clear until it bottoms out at about two-thirds of a second at 40 words. At the same time, each cleared word makes newly spawned words fall slightly faster: early words take roughly 15 to 22 seconds to cross the screen, about 7 to 9 seconds at 40 words, and around 4 to 5 seconds by 100. Words already on screen keep the speed they started with.

Mistakes That Lose Games

Pressing Space after each word. It is a typing-test reflex, but a space matches no word, so pressed mid-word it throws away the letters you had typed.
Chasing whichever word you notice first. The word nearest the bottom is the one about to cost a life, so deal with it before newer words higher up.
Racing at the expense of accuracy. A wrong letter that fits no falling word wipes your progress, so a typo costs the whole word, not just a single key.
Clicking away from the page mid-run. If focus moves to the address bar or another window, your keystrokes stop reaching the game while the words keep falling.

Typing Speed Questions

Is my score a words-per-minute figure?

No. The score counts how many words you cleared before losing five lives. Because the pace keeps rising, a higher score means you kept up with faster and more frequent words for longer.

Can I play on my phone?

Yes. Tap the play area to bring up the on-screen keyboard. Expect lower scores than on a physical keyboard, since the on-screen keyboard covers part of the screen and thumb typing is slower.

Which word does my typing lock onto?

The lowest word on screen that starts with what you have typed. If two words share a first letter, the next letter decides, and the lock switches to whichever word still fits. Your input only clears when nothing on screen matches.

For the complete rules, the deeper strategy and the history of the game, read the full Typing Speed guide, or browse guides for all 33 games.