Quick answer: To solve Waffle in 10 swaps and earn 5 stars, work out all six words before you move a tile. Then make every swap that fixes two letters at once, and close the shortest “swap loop” next. When a letter repeats, take the copy from the square where the tile you’re moving out belongs.
By Ashish Sharma · Updated October 31, 2026 · How we tested: we played Waffle archive puzzles in a browser and wrote a solver that finds the fewest swaps. We then ran four common methods on 50 random archive puzzles, from #78 to #1,695, and checked the results in the live game: our planned 10-swap route on Archive Waffle #100 ended with 5 swaps left and 5 stars, and a left-to-right solve of the same grid ended with 4.
In Short
- You get 15 swaps, the perfect score needs 10, and each unused swap is a star.
- Every Waffle we tested needed exactly 10 swaps, with 5 to 7 tiles already green at the start.
- Solving left to right gave 5 stars on only 12 of 50 puzzles. Closing the shortest loop first gave 5 stars in 99% of runs.
- Repeated letters cause most lost stars, so check which copy you take.
How does Waffle work?
You swap letters on a waffle-shaped grid until three across words and three down words are all correct. The grid has 21 tiles, six five-letter words and four holes. You drag any tile onto any other tile to swap them, and every swap counts, even a bad one. These limits come straight from the game’s help screen:
| Mode | Swaps you get | Minimum swaps | Stars possible |
|---|---|---|---|
| Daily Waffle | 15 | 10 | 5 |
| Deluxe Waffle (weekly) | 25 | 20 | 5 |
| Number Waffle | 20 | 15 | 5 |
| Waffle Royale (supporters only) | 20 | 15 | 5 |
The colours work like Wordle, with one twist for corners:
- Green: right letter, right square. Never move it.
- Yellow (middle of a word): the letter is in that word, but in a different square.
- Yellow (corner): the letter belongs in the across word or the down word that meet there.
- White: the letter isn’t in the word or words that pass through that square.
Repeated letters follow a stricter rule. Waffle highlights only as many copies as the word still needs, so once one S in a word turns green, a second yellow S in that word goes white.
How do you get 5 stars in Waffle?
Solve the words on paper, then swap in a planned order. This is the routine that worked in our tests:
- Solve all six words before you swap. Start with the word that has the most greens. Corners are shared, so a solved across word gives you the first and last letters of two down words.
- List every wrong square and the letter it needs. In our 50-puzzle sample, 14 to 16 squares were wrong at the start.
- Take every 2-for-1 swap. If square A holds B’s letter and B holds A’s letter, swapping them fixes both. Most puzzles had one or two of these. Five of our 50 had none.
- Trace the shortest loop. Start at a wrong square and ask “where does this letter belong?”. Go there and ask again, until you arrive back where you started.
- Close that loop. Swap the starting square with each square on the loop in turn. Every swap fixes one letter, and the last swap fixes two.
- Repeat until the grid is green, picking the right copy whenever a letter repeats (see below).
Why do swap loops decide your stars?
Because a perfect solve depends on how many loops the wrong tiles form, not on how clever each swap looks. If you follow each wrong tile to the square where its letter belongs, the tiles always form closed loops. A loop of two tiles needs 1 swap. A loop of three needs 2, and a loop of k tiles needs k – 1. So the fewest swaps is the number of wrong tiles minus the number of loops.
Waffle #100 is a clean example. It starts with 15 wrong tiles in five 3-tile loops: 15 – 5 = 10 swaps. You lose a star whenever a swap merges two loops into one, which usually happens when you grab the wrong copy of a repeated letter. Across our 50 puzzles we counted 82 two-tile loops, 76 three-tile loops, 36 four-tile loops and 34 longer ones.
Which copy of a repeated letter should you take?
Take the copy sitting in the square where the tile you’re moving out belongs. That swap fixes two squares instead of one. In our sample, about nine of the 21 letters on each board were repeats, most often E, then A, R and T. So this choice comes up in almost every game.
Here’s where the left-to-right method lost its star on Waffle #100. By swap 5, the second square of the middle column needed an E and was holding a U. Two spare Es were on the board: one in row 3, column 4, and one in row 4, column 3. The U belongs in row 4, column 3, so swapping with that E fixes both squares. Reading order grabbed the row 3 E first. That swap fixed only one tile, and the solve finished in 11 swaps for 4 stars. Our planned route on the same grid finished in 10 with 5 stars.
How much does planning help? Our 50-puzzle test
A lot. Closing the shortest loop first turned a coin flip into a near-certain 5 stars. We gave each method the solved words, so this only measures swap order. Then we ran it on 50 random archive Waffles, with 300 random tie-breaks per puzzle for the methods that involve choices.
| Method | 5-star rate | Average swaps | Worst case |
|---|---|---|---|
| Any swap that puts one letter in place | about 15% | 11.6 | 15 (0 stars) |
| Fill squares left to right | 24% (12 of 50) | 11.4 | 14 |
| 2-for-1 swaps first, then any correct swap | about 60% | 10.5 | 13 |
| Shortest loop first | 99% | 10.0 | 11 (1 puzzle, #1149) |
The takeaway: “only make swaps that fix something” isn’t enough on its own. Even grabbing every 2-for-1 swap first missed 5 stars about four times in ten. It’s the loop order that protects your stars.
What time does a new Waffle come out in India?
5:30 AM IST by default, because the daily Waffle changes at midnight GMT. In the game’s Settings, the option “When would you like your next Waffle?” lets you pick Midnight GMT or Midnight Local time. Choose local time and the puzzle changes at 12:00 AM IST. Missed a day? The Waffle archive has past puzzles. They don’t count toward your stats, and the Deluxe archive asks you to watch an ad once a day.
Play similar free puzzles on Gipcus
Done with today’s Waffle? These logic and word games run free in your browser, with no download:
- Waffle Game: a different word game from Code This Lab with the same name. You link letters to spell as many words as you can in two minutes.
- Nonogram Master: grid logic with row and column clues, like Waffle’s crossing words. Start with our nonogram solving guide.
- 2048: another puzzle where planning moves ahead beats quick reactions. See our 2048 strategy tips.
- Brain Test: trick puzzles. Stuck? Our Brain Test answers cover every level.
- More picks: quiet browser games for a work break and 5-minute browser games.
Frequently asked questions
What is the minimum number of swaps in Waffle?
Ten. Waffle’s own help page says every daily Waffle can be solved in a minimum of 10 swaps, and our solver confirmed exactly 10 on all 50 archive puzzles we tested. You get 15 swaps, so a perfect game leaves 5 unused.
How are stars counted in Waffle?
You earn one star for every swap you have left when the grid is solved. Ten swaps leaves 5 and earns 5 stars. Eleven swaps earns 4 stars, and using all 15 earns none, though the game still counts it as solved.
Why did I lose a star when every swap fixed a letter?
Usually because of a repeated letter. If a word needs an E and the grid has two spare Es, only one of them sits where the tile you’re moving out belongs. Grabbing the other copy fixes one tile instead of two and costs a star.
What does a yellow corner tile mean in Waffle?
Corner tiles belong to two words, one across and one down. A yellow corner means the letter belongs in either the row word or the column word, but not on that corner. Waffle’s help page calls this out as a special case.
What time does the new Waffle come out in India?
By default the daily Waffle changes at midnight GMT, which is 5:30 AM IST. In Waffle’s Settings you can switch “When would you like your next Waffle?” to Midnight Local time, so it changes at 12:00 AM IST instead.
Does the Waffle archive count toward my streak?
No. Waffle’s archive page says old puzzles don’t count toward your regular statistics. That makes the archive a good place to practise the loop method before you try it on the daily puzzle.
Is Gipcus’s Waffle Game the same as wafflegame.net?
No. The Waffle Game on Gipcus is a different word game from Code This Lab, where you link letters to make as many words as you can in two minutes. The swap puzzle in this guide is played at wafflegame.net.
Sources: Waffle’s in-game help, settings and archive pages at wafflegame.net (Waffle Studio Ltd), and Gipcus’s own solver and browser tests on 50 archive puzzles. We don’t publish daily answers, so the strategy here works on any puzzle.
About the author: Ashish Sharma runs Gipcus and tests every puzzle guide hands-on, from Minesweeper and nonograms to 2048.
