Looking for a short daily online game like wordle or connections. My family likes to share scores in the group chat every morning.

Question

jen · Answer

clues by sam: a delightful logic puzzle game that updates daily. puzzles get harder throughout the week. a great way to wake up my brain in the morning

Shea · Answer

Wordsmith: Really good game and family gc fodder

Sil · Answer

Raddle: It’s like a word ladder except the word changes completely at each step and you don’t know which clue goes to which step. It’s almost never too hard, and I find it absurdly pleasing when I realize “noise” contains the word “nose”

Tanvi · Answer

Catfishing!: Guessing wikipedia page based on subcategories, can get very niche

Gabi · Answer

Krillion: Try to name the rarest item in the category. Reminds me of when I played Scattergories as a kid! Love seeing the depth with each answer too. Try it!

Scott Forbes · Answer

OUTLIER Daily Global Word Game: Make words out of today’s collection of letters—and the rarer the word, the higher the score

Tricia B · Answer

Freerice: Every time you play this vocabulary game a donation is made to the World Food Program

Abby Phoenix · Answer

Knotwords: If you’re a word game aficionado/addict like me, this phone app is such a satisfying complement to the NYT ones! You make words given the letters available to you in a cluster — that’s it!

It gets harder throughout the week, but isn’t really so hard as to be annoying; it somehow doesn’t require internet (so comes in clutch when you want to kill time on an airplane); and there are streaks, but if you forget a day or five, you can regain that streak when you come back to it by playing for a week. A near-perfect way to exercise your brain every day.

amber flack · Answer

Align - Boston Globe: Sort of like if Wordle and strands had a baby

Elena · Answer

Semantle: A maddeningly fun guessing game

Daniel · Answer

4x3 and SMUSH: 4x3 by Hank Green and SMUSH by John Green are my go-to daily games. Scratches the Wordle itch without the NYT stink.

Ari Boyer · Answer

NoomaLooma: Creative Prompts: A super playful app that forces you to create instead of scroll.  It gives thoughtful prompts to creatively express yourself and allows you to see how other people creatively address the prompt as well! The more reps I do the less perfect I tend to be with it and I think that’s the point.

S.A.V. · Answer

Beeswax: This is a super fun five word spelling bee for the etymologically inclined. 🐝🐝🐝

AMB · Answer

LinkedIn Games: Are you obsessed with the New York Times puzzle games (I’m talking about you Wordle)? LinkedIn has a few logic games that are similar and fun to play too

Amu Killada · Answer

Sudoku a day number puzzle app: I play this every day, the UI is great! No ads :)

JV · Answer

New Yorker “Catalogues” Game: I think it’s very possible to make up a version of this “category arrangement game” with your friends, but also it’s a solo phone puzzle that’s free on the New Yorker. Play a few rounds of this sorting/listing game Catalogues, and I bet you will catch on and become mildly obsessed.

sunset strip mall · Answer

Cinematrix: i love this and play it every day, religiously! a puzzle game involving actors/directors and naming movies they're in based on specific criteria ("begins with letters A-L"; "released between 1985 and 2000"). it's also really fun to do with a parent or sibling nearby (or even over the phone or Zoom, i bet). there's also a free version here: https://moviegrid.io/

Annie Loves · Answer

Spotle.: In addition to being a fun game, it also gets new/old music in my queue!

meltingpopsicle · Answer

4x3: By the Green Brothers. It's like connections but different!

suzy · Answer

parseword: teaches you how to do cryptic crossword clues! challenging but fun once you get the hang of it.

Jess · Answer

Puzzmo: A terrific, curated set of daily puzzles by some of the best designers around. Subscribe if you want access to the archive!

Jess · Answer

clues by sam: Clever, funny, well-designed logic puzzles.

Liz Corkery · Answer

Shuffalo on the New Yorker App: This is a cute and challenging game where you have to spell incrementally longer words from the same group of offered letters.

Jim Biancolo · Answer

Stars by Inkwell Games: Fun little daily logic puzzle, where you place stars on a board and it’s kinda sudoku-like where stars can’t touch, and you have to put two and only two into each shape, row, and column. Surprisingly addictive, and there’s a timer so you can post your time to your competitive family :) They get harder as the week goes on so Mondays are easiest and Sundays are hardest. It’s rare I can do the whole week, I usually tap out on Friday or Saturday.

reo · Answer

Anthropeum: Every day this game gives you ten objects from the Metropolitan Museum of Art collection and you have to guess where they are from and when they were made. I am not good at this game but I fucking love it. Look at all the cool stuff humans have made!!

Robert Palmer patiently explains to the void · Answer

enclose.horse: Build an enclosure around the horse by placing walls on the grid. Tap a grass (green) tile to place a wall. The more grass tiles you trap the horse inside, the higher your score, and each puzzle gives you a limited number of walls. A new puzzle every day.

Willa · Answer

Timeguessr: AKA When in the world is Carmen Sandiego. Quick, fun, lends itself well to competition and rewards encyclopedic knowledge of  historical fashion, geography and world events. I adore it, but that's also where my interests lie. Others (with far lower scores, hah!) were less impressed.

You analyze a photo and guess exactly where and when it was taken. No ads that I can see and works well as a website or app.

Sarah Watkins · Answer

Pin Drop: Free daily geography game - so fun.

Liela · Answer

Map Tap!!: 5 daily geography questions. I’m getting everyone in my life into it.