← Back to today’s gamePUZZLE #244 · APR 15, 2026

JAVA to POOP.

7 moves. 8 equally short routes. Here is one way through.

  1. STARTjavaYour starting word
  2. 01lavaJ → L
  3. 02lamaV → M
  4. 03lampA → P
  5. 04campL → C
  6. 05compA → O
  7. 06coopM → O
  8. 07poopC → P · Made it!

The first move matters.

JAVA has 3 valid one-letter neighbors in this dictionary. 1 of them can begin a shortest path:

LAVA

Each of these leaves 6 moves to POOP. The other 2 neighbors are valid moves too, but cannot reach the target in the minimum from this starting word.

Follow the changes

The highlighted letter beside each step shows exactly which position changed. This historical solution uses the original puzzle’s dictionary and minimum move count. Other shortest routes can take different intermediate words.

Explore more past puzzles →
Explore shortest alternatives (8 total)

Showing 8 of 8 paths.

JAVA → LAVA → LAMA → LAMP → CAMP → COMP → COOP → POOP

JAVA → LAVA → LAMA → LAMP → CAMP → COMP → POMP → POOP

JAVA → LAVA → LAMA → LAMP → LIMP → PIMP → POMP → POOP

JAVA → LAVA → LAMA → LAMP → LUMP → PUMP → POMP → POOP

JAVA → LAVA → LAMA → LAMP → RAMP → ROMP → POMP → POOP

JAVA → LAVA → LAMA → LIMA → LIMP → PIMP → POMP → POOP

JAVA → LAVA → LAMA → LUMA → LUMP → PUMP → POMP → POOP

JAVA → LAVA → LAMA → LUMA → PUMA → PUMP → POMP → POOP