Soufflé, an anagram word pyramid

Soufflé rises and falls. Its eleven answers start at three letters, grow by one letter at every step to a single eight-letter word at the top, and then lose a letter at every step on the way back down to three.

How it plays

Each answer is an anagram of those next to it with a letter added or removed. Steps that only add or drop a letter don't count, so REVEAL to LEAVE is a step and LEAVER to LEVER is not.

Because the shape never changes, you know the length of every answer before you start. The first half of the chain only ever gains letters and the second half only ever loses them, so on the way up you are looking for the letter that arrives and on the way down for the letter that goes.

The peak is the longest answer in the puzzle and often the one that opens it up. Its letters hold everything on both slopes below it.

A worked example

This pyramid was made up for this page. It peaks at six letters where a real Soufflé goes to eight, and it comes from no day's puzzle.

1. Vehicle on four wheelsCARthe bottom of the climb
2. Contest of speedRACEan E arrives
3. Looks afterCARESan S arrives
4. Look forSEARCHan H arrives
5. Measures of landACRESthe H goes
6. Matter for a detectiveCASEthe R goes
7. The Tasman, for oneSEAthe C goes

Every word on the way up keeps the letters of CAR and adds one: an E, then an S, then an H for SEARCH at the top. On the way down the H goes first, then the R, then the C, leaving SEA.

Tips

• Solve the peak early if you can. Each slope below it is made only of letters it already has.
• Work down from a solved answer as well as up to it. Taking a letter away is often easier to see than adding one.
• On the way down, try each letter of the answer above in turn as the one that goes, and see what the rest spell.
• A hint shows one letter of the answer you are on, which on a long word near the top can be enough.

Soufflé in the day's four

Omeletter sets four puzzles a day, chosen from its nine games, and every game comes round at least once in any three days. New puzzles appear at 05:00 UTC, which is mid-afternoon in Sydney and early morning in London.

You start with fifty hints in the app and five on the website, and you earn another for every puzzle you solve. On this website you can play today and the two days before it. The app keeps every day you open while it is free.

Play today's puzzles

On the App Store and Google Play.

The other games

• Fold
• Flip
• Roux
• Reduction
• Double Yolk
• Scratch
• Fork
• Lattice

All nine are explained side by side on How to play, and every answer comes from the word list.