Word Bocce

played on a court of 40,000 words

Raking the court…Loading 40,000 word vectors (4 MB).

How to play

  1. Your red ball starts on one word. The yellow jack is another word. Roll your ball as close to the jack as you can.
  2. Tap words to add (+) or subtract (−) their meaning, up to three, then tap Throw.
    boat + sky − water → plane
  3. Closeness is a ranking. 1st means the jack is the nearest word to your ball, a bacio (a kiss). You get four balls; your best counts.

Why does adding words work?

The game stores each word as a list of 100 numbers, learned from how the word is used across billions of words of text. Words used in similar ways get similar lists. A throw adds and subtracts those lists, so the ball moves through meaning.

Versus rules

Real bocce rules: whoever is farther from the jack throws next. When both sides are out of balls, the closer side scores a point for each of its balls that beats the other side's best.

The maths, in slides