Here are a couple of minor optimisations:

1)  In the transform sub you copy the contents of the @words array unnecessarily. Change: 

     50     my @words = @{+shift};

     72             foreach my $word (@words) {

     95             foreach my $word (@words) {

[download]
To: 
     50     my $words = shift;

     72             foreach my $word (@$words) {

     95             foreach my $word (@$words) {

[download]
2)  The four argument form of substr is more efficient then assigning to the three argument form of substr. Change: 
    118         substr((my $pat = $word), $i, 1) = '.';

[download]
To: 
    118         substr my $pat = $word, $i, 1, '.';

[download]

HTH

In reply to Re: Play and win the word morph game with the help of Perl :) by jwkrahn
in thread Play and win the word morph game with the help of Perl :) by Ieronim

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