掲示板 Forums - How to Play Shitori

There are four versions I can see.

V1-you play with hiragana/katakana. Play a word that overlaps with the last letters of the previous word. In English: ship IPswich CHannel ELementary. You get more points, the longer the word, and the more the overlap. There’s also a bonus if you use the syllable named in the game. For the Japanese shiritori here, you can’t end a word with n or - . You can’t repeat a word that has been used.

V2 Shiritori cat. V1 against the computer. Here you have 3 lives. Make a mistake, lose a life.

V3 Same as above but kanji only. This means the overlap is with kanji, not by sound. You can’t end with 者, the repeat symbol (just type the word twice) and at least one other kanji which escapes me.

V4 On Discord. Essentially, V1 but rules are not enforced by software. People make mistakes all the time. I guess people can play this as a combination of v1 and 3 (since rules are not enforced), but ppl only seem to play v1.

Copy-pasting this from an older thread because I don't know how to get a link to it in the app (but if you search for "shiritori" in the forum you'll get more results):

For the exact rules, tap the small "See how to play" text under the big "Add a word" button in Shiritori (the same rules apply to Shiritori Cat, except that one is against the clock, and you find them by tapping the question mark in the bottom left corner after you start a game).

Essentially, it's a word-chain type of game. You find a word that begins with the kana the previous word ends with. You say こと, I say とき (or any other word that starts with と, since it's the kana your word ended with). Bonus points if you overlap with more kana at the end of the word: for example, you say ばけもの, I say ものがたり. If the previous word ends in a compound like きゅ, しょ, じゃ etc., it's enough if you start your word with that ending (ゆっくり, よわさ, やつ, for example).

However, you can't end your word in such a way that no one can find a response to it. Generally, that means you can't use words that end in ん, because there are no words that begin with it. Sure, there are words with な, ね, に, の, ぬ, but Shiritori is played with kana, not sounds. Similarly, you can't end a word in a long-vowel katakana, say かうんたー, because nothing starts with ー.

For kanji shiritori, it's the same, except you need to start your word with the last kanji (one or more) of the last word, regardless of their reading.

Some shiritori games have limitations (use only nouns, use only katakana), and all have bonus points for using words that, on top of the rules above, also include a specific kana: if the bonus kana is こ and the last word is かわいい, you could answer いまだ, but you get extra points if you answer いこくor いとこ, for example.

Now for the hard part: finding the words. I'm afraid I don't have a direct solution, but as you learn more words, it becomes easier. The point of Shiritori is exactly to "activate" that vocabulary that's in your head but just won't come out. :) You can use Renshuu's dictionary to find matching words, but it's best to actually try to learn them, not mechanically copy them into Shiritori just to have played the game.