An Alphacram puzzle looks, and is to be solved, much like a traditional crossword puzzle. Unlike a traditional crossword puzzle, however, there are no clues; instead you complete each entry with any word that meets these criteria:

1. The word must be comprised of the twelve letters provided with your puzzle. You can use any of these letters as many times as you wish.
2. The word must be recognized by the Enable word list.
3. The word has not been used to (wholly) complete any other entry in the same puzzle.

When playing the online version, you can click the "check" button to check the validity of your current entries. You can do this as many times as you like. When you are ready to submit, type your name into the textfield and click submit. If your submission is invalid the cgi script will reject your puzzle and give you an opportunity to make corrections.

Puzzles will expire either upon submission of a valid solution or 24 hours after the puzzle's creation.


Scoring

The objective of Alphacram is to obtain the highest possible score. Your score is the sum of the values of each word used in the puzzle. The value of each word is the sum of the values of the letters used in the word. The value of a letter is indicated beneath the letter.

You'll notice that, unlike Scrabble, the value of a letter may change from game to game, and that there's no correlation between the usage frequency of a letter and its value. Alphacram, you see, requires no such constraints for maximum hootenannification.

An incomplete puzzle, or a puzzle containing an invalid entry, will be scored zero.

Rating

The fun doesn't end with scoring! Because some puzzles more easily lend to higher scores than others, your performance, or rating, is judged on a relative scale. Ratings are calculated by dividing your score by the "gold" score then multiplying by 1000. High ratings are noted for posterity on the high ratings list.

How is the gold medal score derived? Unfortunately, the process is too lengthy to describe here and, regardless, would be difficult to follow without a full understanding of price theory, torque, and hamster neuropsychology.