Climb from BLOWN to BREED, one letter at a time, every rung a word. Par is 15 and perfect is 11, the shortest route there is. No undo, only a restart.
Rung is a free daily word ladder from Mind Loft. Two five-letter words, and a climb from one to the other changing a single letter at a time, with every rung a word in its own right. The puzzle is as old as Lewis Carroll and still one of the best things you can do with a dictionary.
Every ladder is machine generated and then solved exactly, so perfect really is the shortest route rather than somebody’s guess, and it was confirmed by a second search written independently of the first. Par sits a cushion above perfect: it is what a clean climb comes in at, and it is beatable. On most boards there is only one shortest ladder, which is what makes matching perfect worth something. Weekday climbs run 10 to 12 rungs and Sundays a good deal further.
A new ladder drops every day at midnight Eastern. No app, no signup, play free in your browser, keep a streak, and race the daily leaderboard. More dailies: Crunch, our daily numbers round, Parker, our daily sliding-block jam, and Crux, our clueless crossword.