Balloword is a daily word puzzle built on the classic hangman idea - except here, instead of a gallows, a balloon inflates a little more with every wrong guess. Looking for a Wordle alternative without the gallows imagery? You're in the right place.
You'll see a row of empty slots standing in for the letters of the hidden word. Guess letters using the on-screen keyboard (or your physical keyboard). Correct guesses fill in every matching spot in the word; wrong guesses inflate the balloon a little more. After 6 mistakes, the balloon pops and that day's round is lost.
The balloon is Balloword's take on the classic hangman: it visibly fills up with every wrong guess, giving you an at-a-glance read on how much room you have left. At 6 mistakes it pops, the word is revealed, and the round ends.
Exactly one new word appears each day - separately for German and English, since each language has its own word list. The daily word changes at the same UTC moment worldwide, no matter which time zone you're playing from. You can play each language version once per day; a second attempt on the same day is locked, because your browser remembers you've already played.
The streak counts how many days in a row you've successfully guessed the daily word. It's tracked separately for German and English if you play both. Your streak and stats are stored only locally in your browser - there's no account or cloud sync, which also means a new browser or cleared history resets it.
Yes, Balloword is completely free and requires no sign-up.
Not currently - Balloword runs directly in the browser, on desktop and mobile alike. You can bookmark the page or, depending on your browser, add it to your home screen as a shortcut.
Guessing is case-insensitive, and for German words, Ö/Ü/Ä automatically match O/U/A, and a plain "s" also matches "ß". That keeps the puzzle fair regardless of keyboard layout or spelling habits, without making it too easy - the puzzle grid itself still shows the original spelling.
Not today's - but the Archive lists every past daily word along with a short explanation, so you can browse them anytime without time pressure.