HiveWord started with one simple idea: a clean daily word puzzle for Hive users, plus competitive HIVE duels for people who want more pressure.
Today I'm adding something new to that mix.
Introducing HiveWord CrossSwap
CrossSwap is a new daily puzzle mode inside HiveWord.
Instead of typing guesses like the classic daily word game, CrossSwap gives you a connected crossword-style grid of letters. Your job is to fix the board by swapping letters into their correct positions.
You tap one letter, tap another, and the two tiles swap places.
That is the whole mechanic.
Simple to understand. Surprisingly hard to master.
How CrossSwap Works
Each daily CrossSwap board is made of overlapping across and down words.
The color rules are:
- Green: the letter is already in the correct position and is locked
- Yellow: the letter belongs in that across or down word, but in a different position
- Grey: the letter belongs somewhere else on the board
You are trying to solve the full board in as few swaps as possible.
This creates a very different kind of daily challenge from the main HiveWord puzzle:
- the original daily mode is about deduction and vocabulary
- CrossSwap is about pattern recognition, spatial thinking, and efficient moves
Why I Built It
HiveWord has been growing nicely on Hive, especially through daily play and sharing.
The main daily word game is still staying exactly where it is.
CrossSwap is not replacing that experience.
It is a second daily mode for people who want something different without leaving the HiveWord ecosystem. Word nerds who like solving puzzles.
That means HiveWord now has:
- the classic daily 5-letter word puzzle
- CrossSwap as a second daily challenge
- competitive HIVE duels for players who want stakes and speed
Built for Daily Play
CrossSwap rotates once per day, just like the main daily puzzle.
The current release starts with one daily board size so I can tune the difficulty properly before expanding it further.
I wanted the first version to feel polished, readable, and worth sharing instead of shipping multiple variants too early.
But the plan is to ship larger grids to amp up the difficulty level.
Sharing on PeakD Snaps
One thing I care about a lot is social discovery on Hive.
HiveWord has already been getting strong traction through Snaps, and CrossSwap is designed to feed that loop too.
You can now share your CrossSwap result to Snaps with the same HiveWord identity and hashtag flow, but with a format that makes sense for this mode.
That gives HiveWord another daily reason for players to post, compare results, and pull more people into the game.
Try It
If you already play HiveWord, open the app and check the new mode switch.
If you are new, this is a great time to jump in:
- play the daily word
- try CrossSwap
- share your result
- challenge a friend to a duel if you want to raise the stakes
Feedback Wanted
This is the first release of CrossSwap, so balancing and polish matter a lot.
If you try it, I would love feedback on:
- difficulty
- board clarity
- swap interaction feel
- sharing format
- how well it fits alongside the original daily word mode
HiveWord keeps getting better because people actually use it, post about it, and say what feels good or bad in the real experience.
So if you play CrossSwap today, let me know what you think.