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Tether
A word ladder puzzle where every rung has its own clue
Classic word ladders hand you a start and an end word, then leave you guessing. Tether puts a clue on every rung, so each single-letter step is a small puzzle you can actually solve. Rows check themselves the moment they fill – green means correct. • 1,178 puzzles: Easy (4 letters), Medium (5–6), Hard (7) • 2 free hints every day, plus a daily spin for coins • Built-in dictionary to look up any word • Day streaks and stats • No ads, no account, works offline
Hi Product Hunt 👋
Word ladders were invented by Lewis Carroll in the 1870s and the format has barely changed since: here's DOG, here's CAT, change one letter at a time. I've always loved the idea, but in practice a ladder is either instantly obvious or a brick wall – with nothing to aim at, you're just brute-forcing letters.
Tether's one change is putting a clue on every rung. You're never guessing blindly, you're solving four small clues that happen to be chained together one letter at a time. That small change makes it feel less like a brain teaser and more like a crossword you climb.
The hard part was generating the puzzles. Making a chain where every word is one letter apart is easy. Making one where every word is common enough that a normal person would actually get there is not – a huge number of technically valid ladders got thrown away because they leaned on words nobody uses. Most of the work went into filtering by word frequency rather than into the game itself.
Two other things worth saying. First, I'm not a developer. I built this in Unity with AI as my pair programmer, which was its own education. Second, I ran a 14-day closed test before launching, and the first-run walkthrough, the in-app rate button and the privacy/terms links all exist because testers asked for them.
It's free, has no ads, needs no account and works offline. Coins for hints are optional – you get 2 free hints a day plus a daily spin.
I'd genuinely love to hear which rung you get stuck on. Happy to answer anything.
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About Tether on Product Hunt
“A word ladder puzzle where every rung has its own clue”
Tether was submitted on Product Hunt and earned 3 upvotes and 1 comments, placing #160 on the daily leaderboard. Classic word ladders hand you a start and an end word, then leave you guessing. Tether puts a clue on every rung, so each single-letter step is a small puzzle you can actually solve. Rows check themselves the moment they fill – green means correct. • 1,178 puzzles: Easy (4 letters), Medium (5–6), Hard (7) • 2 free hints every day, plus a daily spin for coins • Built-in dictionary to look up any word • Day streaks and stats • No ads, no account, works offline
Tether was featured in Android (57.4k followers), Puzzle Games (4.3k followers) and Word Games (2.3k followers) on Product Hunt. Together, these topics include over 48.7k products, making this a competitive space to launch in.
Who hunted Tether?
Tether was hunted by Quintin. A “hunter” on Product Hunt is the community member who submits a product to the platform — uploading the images, the link, and tagging the makers behind it. Hunters typically write the first comment explaining why a product is worth attention, and their followers are notified the moment they post. Around 79% of featured launches on Product Hunt are self-hunted by their makers, but a well-known hunter still acts as a signal of quality to the rest of the community. See the full all-time top hunters leaderboard to discover who is shaping the Product Hunt ecosystem.
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Quintin