How to Play the Emoji Game

The Emoji Game gives you three familiar phrases with letters missing and a tray of six emoji groups. Each group stands for a chunk of letters; place every group into the blanks it fills to complete all three phrases. Here is the whole game, step by step.

The four steps

  1. Read the phrases. Three phrases sit above the tray, each missing some letters and paired with a short clue. Revealed letters are your scaffolding — sound the phrase out in your head.
  2. Decode the emoji. Each of the six emoji groups stands for letters: the thing it shows, an idea it evokes, or the sound of its name. Match a group to the blanks whose length and letters fit.
  3. Place a group. Drag a group onto a blank span, or tap the group then tap the blanks. Right fills the letters in; wrong bounces back. Either way it costs one move.
  4. Solve in few moves. Finish all three phrases using as few moves as you can. Six is perfect. Reveal the answers only if you are truly stuck — it ends your streak.

How emoji become letters

There are three ways an emoji group can map to letters, and a good puzzle mixes them:

A group can also fill letters that are not next to each other, so read the blank shapes carefully: the underlined segments show exactly which letters one group must supply.

Scoring

Your score is the number of moves you used. Fewer is better:

A perfect six-move game means one correct drop for each group with no wrong guesses and no clue reveals. Every wrong drop and every clue you open adds a move. You can reveal the full answers at any time, but that ends the puzzle and breaks your daily streak.

Play today's puzzle Read the strategy guide