Favorite online social puzzles?

May 31, 2024 7:51 AM

I'm looking for [ideally, free] online puzzles similar to the NYT offerings in that my friends can sign up and we can compare scores via a leaderboard, so we can trash talk each other.
posted by mecran01 to Media & Arts (16 answers total)

You may like the Puzzmo options
posted by phunniemee at 7:56 AM on May 31 [4 favorites]

Response by poster: Puzzmo!
posted by mecran01 at 8:16 AM on May 31 [4 favorites]

In Tradle (a game from The Observatory of Economic Complexity), you are given a chart showing the total exports of a country, visualized into blocks by percentage. You guess at which country it is, and are given feedback in the form of a directional arrow and a distance for how far off you are.

What I love about this game is that because there are only about 195 countries in the world, you get better and better at this over time. Petroleum, cars, and broadcasting equipment? That's gotta be Eastern Europe. Overwhelmingly minerals? Start in Africa.

It's fun to play, easy to understand, but I still feel like it's teaching me things. (Of course strongmen/dictators are common in countries whose wealth is tied up 80% or more in a single resource. Etc.)
posted by DirtyOldTown at 9:19 AM on May 31 [1 favorite]

I'm kind of into Linxicon at the moment. You're given two (random?) English words, and have to guess what their system thinks are words adjacent in meaning, until you get a chain of adjacent words leading from one given word to the other.
posted by amtho at 9:36 AM on May 31 [1 favorite]

Blossom is very competitive-trash-talkable. I can routinely score above 300, but 350 is an accomplishment.
posted by humbug at 10:08 AM on May 31 [2 favorites]

Do you want one with a built-in leaderboard? Redactle hasn't that, but would otherwise work as you end up with a score (several metrics in fact, guesses, correct / wrong guesses, % correct, time taken).
posted by paduasoy at 10:20 AM on May 31

The Atlantic has a crossword that gets harder every day and is timed.
posted by toucan at 10:36 AM on May 31

metazooa and metaflora were fun for my group!
posted by gaybobbie at 10:38 AM on May 31 [1 favorite]

Quintumble is part of my daily routine along with the NYT puzzles and has a few parameters like time taken and score to aid the trash talking.
posted by tillwehavefaces at 10:39 AM on May 31 [2 favorites]

My pals and I do Duotrigordle. There's a global leaderboard, a timer, and several different game modes. It's at the sweet spot of challenging but not impossible.
posted by Klipspringer at 10:42 AM on May 31 [3 favorites]

Cell Tower (previously)
posted by Phssthpok at 10:44 AM on May 31

Squaredle is a fun wordsearch puzzle, with a full-size puzzle and a mini one every day for free (or you can subscribe for access to the archives). Monday is usually the easiest day and Friday the hardest - don't judge it by today's difficulty! There's a leaderboard for each of the two daily puzzles, ordered in a few different ways. Far more people complete the puzzles than fit onto the leaderboards, but there's an option specifically to compare with friends.
posted by ManyLeggedCreature at 12:01 PM on May 31 [2 favorites]

Whoops, meant to link the mini one (Squaredle Express) too. It's a good taster.
posted by ManyLeggedCreature at 12:08 PM on May 31 [2 favorites]

You might find some of what you seek in this question from July 2023.
posted by DrGail at 1:19 PM on May 31

Mod note: [btw, this has been added to the sidebar and Best Of blog!]
posted by taz (staff) at 1:39 AM on June 1

Redactle. Guess the Wikepedia article by filling in all the redacted words.
posted by QuakerMel at 4:36 PM on June 2 [1 favorite]