Give me your daily puzzles!

July 20, 2023 7:45 AM

I am hooked on daily puzzles. I already do Set, Wordle, Guess My Word, Worldle, and Spelling Bee. I have a NYTimes subscription and have enough crossword puzzles. Math, logic, word-based: I love them all. What else might I like?
posted by DrGail to Computers & Internet (52 answers total)

Best answer: I'm not sure if they'd count as puzzles, but for geography, there's Globle and Worldle.
posted by FencingGal at 7:51 AM on July 20, 2023 [2 favorites]

Best answer: We get the paper NYT on the weekends, and Saturdays have Two-Not-Touch puzzles I really like. They're not on the NYT puzzle app but the creator has a backlog of interactive puzzles on his (charmingly old-fashioned) website. They have 1- 2- and 3-star versions.

I'm glad for the opportunity to introduce another puzzle-lover to KrazyDad!
posted by rabbitbookworm at 7:51 AM on July 20, 2023 [5 favorites]

Best answer: Squaredle and Squardle are different words games. Also Wordiply.

Also Nerdle and Mathler for number games. I don't have links at hand because I stopped playing them, but they should be easy to Google.
posted by jacquilynne at 7:51 AM on July 20, 2023 [6 favorites]

Best answer: Semantle will tell you how semantically similar it thinks your word is to the secret word. It has solo and team modes, but the team mode can be buggy. When we play as a team, it's cooperative--we're all helping each other to find the answer, because it's HARD!
posted by ImproviseOrDie at 7:52 AM on July 20, 2023 [2 favorites]

Best answer: Artle, if you want to guess artists based on artworks.
posted by PussKillian at 7:52 AM on July 20, 2023 [2 favorites]

Best answer: Waffle . Swap letters to solve the clues. If you have Amazon Prime, you can use the premium Waffle Royale (the best variant).
posted by shock muppet at 7:59 AM on July 20, 2023 [1 favorite]

PlusWord from The Telegraph (this was suggested in a previous thread).

I like Redactle, where you figure out a redacted wikipedia article, but it is hard.
posted by O9scar at 8:05 AM on July 20, 2023 [7 favorites]

My daily rotation includes the already-mentioned Globle, Waffle, Squardle (my personal favorite), and also includes Quordle, which now also has a Daily Sequence, which I find more fun than the original.
posted by General Malaise at 8:05 AM on July 20, 2023 [2 favorites]

NYT has a new game in Beta called Connections that is quick. Some days it is way too easy.

Letterboxed also in the NYT Crossword app now is ok. I try hard to get Letterboxed in 2, but maybe only achieve that once or twice a week but always get it under whatever it asks you to. A lot of times getting Letterboxed in under 5 is trivial.

I have a Jotto app that has a daily puzzle too.
posted by cmm at 8:06 AM on July 20, 2023 [7 favorites]

I guess I also am a baseball fan and do Immaculate Grid, but it is more niche.
posted by cmm at 8:08 AM on July 20, 2023

Duotrigordle is Wordle but you solve 32 puzzles at once. I really like this one because it has 3 different puzzles you can play each day: traditional, sequence where you have to solve one to get next, and jumble where it picks the first three words for you.
posted by possibilityleft at 8:14 AM on July 20, 2023 [3 favorites]

Best answer: Wikitrivia has you order a randomly selected series of events pulled from the Wikipedia.
posted by OrangeDisk at 8:15 AM on July 20, 2023 [4 favorites]

My daily set includes some of the ones already listed, and:

• Digits (New York Times arithmetic puzzle, currently in beta)
• Worgle (six-letter-word Wordle)
• DuoMoji (a quick little pair-matching memory game, using emoji for the tiles)
• Cell Tower (find the set of words that perfectly fill the grid).

Sometimes I do the daily 0hn0 and 0hh1 logic puzzles too.

Also, courtesy of a timely post on the Blue today: Big Ben, a word puzzle with as many daily games as there are seconds in the day.
posted by ManyLeggedCreature at 8:52 AM on July 20, 2023 [4 favorites]

Murdle (whodunnit murder mystery a la Clue)

Framed (Guess the movie in 6 frames)
posted by Champagne Supernova at 8:53 AM on July 20, 2023 [5 favorites]

Clickword
posted by quacks like a duck at 8:58 AM on July 20, 2023 [1 favorite]

Ooh, Connections is way more up my alley than Digits, thanks for that :)

I play Poker Handle and Birdle sometimes, both listed on Wordles of the World Unite.
posted by box at 9:04 AM on July 20, 2023

Despite the sodoku craze, I strongly prefer kenken. It's only published in the paper version of the NYT. I find the daily ones too easy, but the bigger Sunday ones take a minute. You can get books of them.
posted by Dashy at 9:05 AM on July 20, 2023 [1 favorite]

Merriam-Webster has variations of Spelling Bee and Wordle daily, but even better IMO is a weekly word quiz.
posted by mark k at 9:05 AM on July 20, 2023 [1 favorite]

Quordle, and there is Sequence in there too.
posted by mumimor at 9:06 AM on July 20, 2023 [1 favorite]

The Washington Post has Keyword.
posted by jknx at 9:24 AM on July 20, 2023 [2 favorites]

Last year, I got pretty good at the Box Office Game, based on a regular segment of the Blank Check Podcast (a film podcast talking about director filmographies, discussing one film a week) where the hosts try to guess what movies were in the Top 5 at the box office for a given week in the past.

It relies on your knowledge of popular (and occasionally semi-forgotten) movies from roughly 1980-present, and you can ask for clues as to the actors/directors/genres, etc. in exchange for lowering your final score.

It's definitely pitched towards a certain kind of film fan, but the hints help even things up and I found that I actually got better at it over time. There's certain '80s and '90s movies that pop up again and again, and if you have a pretty good memory you'll learn to look for them in certain years.
posted by Strange Interlude at 9:27 AM on July 20, 2023

Just stopping by to second the Big Ben game linked above, created by MeFi's own Paul Slade.
posted by beagle at 9:39 AM on July 20, 2023 [1 favorite]

No-Repeat Wordle is fun. It's just like Wordle, but as you keep playing daily, it gets harder and harder because you can't repeat a guess.
posted by tangosnail at 9:45 AM on July 20, 2023 [1 favorite]

Best answer: Someone just recommended Tradle on the similar ask last week and I've been playing it daily since.
posted by phunniemee at 9:56 AM on July 20, 2023 [3 favorites]

In addition to Wordle, I like Quordle, Octordle, Sedecordle, and Duotrigordle.
posted by panther of the pyrenees at 9:59 AM on July 20, 2023

Best answer: We have recently gotten super into Travle: connect two countries or territories in fewest number of steps. Very fun. (We also do Worldle on a daily basis).
posted by AwkwardPause at 10:17 AM on July 20, 2023 [1 favorite]

I like Square Word. It's like Wordle, but it's in columns and rows.
posted by kathrynm at 10:22 AM on July 20, 2023

Two wordle variants which I've been enjoying most lately:

Hurdle, which offers the same clues but doesn't tell you which letters they correspond to, and

lirdle, which is just like wordle except there's exactly one random clue in each line which is wrong.

Both are a bit trickier than wordle, but fun. They give you more guesses to compensate.

Now off to check out the rest of these suggestions!
posted by alexei at 10:43 AM on July 20, 2023

Crissle Crossle is an obnoxious Wordle variation where your guess is scored against both the hidden word and another word, which is displayed.
posted by It's Never Lurgi at 11:06 AM on July 20, 2023

My daily play list has several already mentioned (Wordle, Framed, Mathler, Globle, Quordle, Octordle, Keyword, Connections) along with:

Septle (Wordle with seven letters)
Sumplete (Previously)
Guess the Game (Framed for video games)
posted by hanov3r at 11:09 AM on July 20, 2023 [1 favorite]

Oh! And Cine2Nerdle
posted by hanov3r at 11:10 AM on July 20, 2023

Antgame.io - procedurally-generated ant simulation where you have to strategically place nests in order to forage the most food before the timer runs out. Nice mix of skill-based and luck. Has daily leaderboards and the small player population is genuinely tough to compete with.

Chronophoto - Every day you get five random photos from throughout the 20th and early 21st centuries and have to guess the year they're from. Surprisingly tricky, and the photos are always interesting.
posted by Rhaomi at 11:20 AM on July 20, 2023

If you’re okay with using an app, Knotwords is great.
posted by thebots at 12:12 PM on July 20, 2023 [2 favorites]

I'm a little bit obsessed with both Phrazle and Blossom. (Blossom’s flower jig upon completion always makes me smile).
posted by The Patron Saint of Spices at 12:30 PM on July 20, 2023 [2 favorites]

Turing Machine is a pure deduction code-cracking puzzle board game that uses analog computer punch cards. Super fun, there is a daily puzzle and massive archive of puzzles on their website.
posted by bradbane at 12:31 PM on July 20, 2023

Spellbound is MeFi's own AMyNameIs's version of NYT SpellingBee. I've spent hours there.
posted by BobTheScientist at 12:36 PM on July 20, 2023

Most of my usual list has already been mentioned, but I also like Pyramid Scheme from BuzzFeed.
posted by egregious theorem at 12:58 PM on July 20, 2023

You didn't mention sudoku, but if you like it you might enjoy Killer Soduku (ios), in which the answers in a grouping have to add up to the small number in the corner. One puzzle daily, lots of tournaments, and an extensive back catalog.
posted by Sweetie Darling at 3:33 PM on July 20, 2023

If you like Spelling Bee, you might want to try my version called Spellbound, announced here in Projects. Some other Mefites have played and have said some nice things about it.

Free, no ads, no data shared with anyone.
posted by AMyNameIs at 6:10 PM on July 20, 2023 [1 favorite]

Personally my favorite puzzle types are fill-a-pix and codewords. Here's a website that seems to have
decent codewords: https://www.exceptional.com/puzzles/codeword-puzzle/

Fill-a-pixes appear to be difficult to find outside of apps.

I also really enjoy Knotwords.
posted by elizabot at 9:50 PM on July 20, 2023

Conceptis Puzzles has website-based logic puzzles like fill-a-pixes, Sudoku variations, and others. They also have apps for some of the games. Free puzzles are available weekly, or you can purchase credit bundles to access more.
posted by Preserver at 7:21 AM on July 21, 2023

Lovatt's Daily Online Code Cracker is a puzzle I did for a while.
posted by box at 7:52 AM on July 21, 2023

digit.party has a daily puzzle and the option to play random puzzles. Bite sized and easy to pick up, need some skill and some luck to score high.
posted by mbd1mbd1 at 12:24 PM on July 21, 2023

I enjoy Contexto. It's a guess-the-word game where each of your guesses gets scored on how similar it is contextually to the secret word.
posted by beatrice rex at 9:31 PM on July 21, 2023

I enjoy Sootly
posted by birdsquared at 12:16 AM on July 22, 2023

GMPuzzles is a wonderful resource for daily logic puzzles. Some sudoku, but many other Japanese-style pencil puzzles. They recently switched to a subscription model (low price, but still), but their archives are free and will give you a sense of whether you like the styles.

Also Cracking the Cryptic is a fantastic youtube channel that posts pretty reliably two variant sudoku puzzles a day.

Lastly, if you really want to kick it up a notch, there's Logic Masters Germany. These tend to be on the harder side (for me, anyway), but it seems to be where all the top-level setters debut their work.
posted by soonertbone at 7:13 PM on July 22, 2023

Mod note: [btw, this post has been added to the sidebar]
posted by taz (staff) at 2:45 AM on July 25, 2023 [1 favorite]

It looks like neither of my daily addictions has been mentioned yet:

• Dadagrams gives you a random Scrabble hand, and you need to find the highest-scoring word from it. One particularity of the game is that you're playing against the developer's dad, who submits his answer the day before. So you don't need to get the theoretically best answer to "win", but you do need to be pretty good.
• In IdentiFIVE you need to find the single five-letter word in a 9x9 grid.

posted by eemeli at 8:36 AM on July 25, 2023

I scored two points more than Dad!
posted by box at 5:24 PM on July 26, 2023

I've been pretty into Letter Boxed recently, one of the NYT games. The trick is trying for a 2-solve, which I only get sometimes. Like cmm mentioned, doing it in 4-5 is usually not difficult, but for each day there's probably only a few word combinations that let you get it done in 2.
posted by destrius at 7:40 AM on July 28, 2023

Simon Tatham's Portable Puzzle Collection has gotten me hooked (and made me want to throw my phone across the room). You'll need to look it up by the name "Simon Tatham" to get the right thing if you're in an app store
posted by treepour at 4:53 PM on July 29, 2023

I'm the creator of lirdle, which launched here at the blue last February, and is still going strong. If you've got any questions or try it and want to send a testimonial (angry ones are just as welcome as praise), feel free to reach out.

If you really want to branch out, I'd recommend cryptic crosswords. I can't do the British ones at all, and maybe I'll figure out one clue in Canadian Fraser Simpson's puzzles in the Globe & Mail, but the weekly Sunday puzzle at The New Yorker comes with optional training wheels, and Games magazine publishes four puzzles every issue. I sometimes can manage to finish Bob Stigger's puzzles.
posted by morspin at 11:23 AM on August 10, 2023