Word Bomb
One word at a time against a shared twenty-second fuse; clearing a word adds time back in proportion to its own length, so the game is a running balance of time spent and time earned rather than a straight race to the finish.
if
Every word you clear adds time back. Longer words pay more.
Word Bomb has no passage. A single word appears in large type, a plain text box sits underneath it, and a twenty-second fuse counts down above both. Type the word exactly and the moment your input matches it character for character, it clears — there's no space bar or enter key to press, the match itself is what triggers the next word.
Clearing a word adds time back to the fuse, and the amount depends entirely on how long the word was: every character is worth roughly a third of a second, so a four-letter word buys back a little over a second while a nine-letter one buys back close to three. The fuse can't be pushed above its starting twenty seconds no matter how far ahead you get, so a run of easy words builds a buffer, not an escape from the format.
That reward structure is the entire decision this game asks you to make, over and over: a long word pays more, but only if you type all of it correctly — there's no partial credit for nine correct letters and one wrong one, so committing to an unfamiliar or awkward long word is a bet that it's worth more time than it risks costing you in the attempt.
How to Play
Because the words come from the site's ordinary common-word list rather than a pool of intentionally obscure ones — the same list behind the fixed-count Words Mode Typing Test — 'long' here usually means six or seven letters rather than something rare, and the decision is less about vocabulary and more about which specific words your own hands tend to fumble.
There's no live correctness feedback while you type, unlike every other page on this site. The box just shows whatever you've typed so far, with no colour or highlighting to say whether it's right, and it only clears once the whole string matches exactly. A typo sitting unnoticed in the box costs you fuse time silently, since nothing on screen will flag it until you notice it yourself and fix it.
When the fuse reaches zero, the run ends and the screen reports total characters cleared — not words, characters — since that's also the number the reward formula runs on. Starting again draws a fresh set of sixty words and resets the fuse to a full twenty seconds.
The Fuse Has a Ceiling for a Reason
Without a cap, a strong opening streak could bank enough time to make the rest of the run effectively risk-free, and the format would stop asking anything of you past that point. Capping the fuse at its starting twenty seconds means every single word still matters, even after a run of easy ones — a bank of unused time doesn't exist here the way it might in a format with no ceiling.
The Reward Is Paid Per Letter
Every correct character returns roughly a third of a second to the fuse, which means a six-letter word buys back close to two seconds and a three-letter one barely more than half that. Two words of very different length can cost about the same amount of typing time to clear, but the shorter one leaves you meaningfully worse off on the fuse — length itself, not difficulty, is what the reward is tracking.
Nothing Confirms a Mistake Until You Notice It
Most of this site tells you the instant a keystroke is wrong, colouring it as you type. Word Bomb doesn't — the box just holds your typed text, silently, until it either matches or you keep typing past the point it should have matched. A stray character early in a word can sit there through several more keystrokes before the mismatch becomes obvious, quietly burning through the very fuse the word was supposed to refill.
What a 'Word' Is Worth Here Versus Everywhere Else
Every WPM figure on this site, explained in full on How WPM Is Actually Calculated, treats a 'word' as exactly five characters regardless of what you actually typed. Word Bomb ignores that convention entirely: a one-letter word like 'a' is worth a fraction of a second, and a genuinely long one from Long Word Drill territory is worth several times as much, because the reward here is built on real word length rather than a fixed scoring unit.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I need to press space or enter after typing the word?
No. The moment your typed text exactly matches the word shown, it clears automatically and the next one appears — there's no submit action required.
What happens if I make a typo partway through a word?
Nothing tells you immediately — unlike the rest of the site, this format shows no live correctness feedback, so a mistyped character just sits in the box until you notice it yourself, keeping you from clearing the word and quietly costing fuse time while it's there.
Is it better to aim for long words or short, safe ones?
Long words pay back more time per success, but only if you type them cleanly — a long word that's awkward for your hands specifically can end up costing more attempts and more fuse than a shorter, safer one would have returned. The Long Word Drill is a reasonable place to find out which long words are actually easy for you.
Can the fuse ever go above twenty seconds if I'm doing well?
No — twenty seconds is a hard ceiling, so a strong streak builds a buffer up to that limit rather than banking time indefinitely. The pressure never fully disappears, even after a run of easy words.
Why does a short word barely help the fuse compared to a long one?
The time you get back scales with the word's actual character count, and a short word simply has fewer characters to earn credit from. It isn't about difficulty — a one-letter word is trivial to type but returns almost nothing, while a long one most typists find harder returns proportionally more.