In 2021, Josh Wardle launched the wildly popular word game Wordleand then the New York Times bought the game in 2022. If you’re not familiar with Wordle, players are asked to guess a five-letter word in six or fewer guesses (we have two-step strategy to help you solve the puzzle every time). After each guess, the game shows gray blocks for the wrong letters, yellow blocks for the right letters in the wrong place and green blocks for the right letters in the right place.

on CNET Gael Cooper there are many tips and tricks to solve every NY Times Wordle puzzle but if you’ve been playing every day for the past few years, you’re probably tired of it. Luckily, there are other word and puzzle games to play.

Don’t miss any of our unbiased tech content and lab-based reviews. Add CNET as a preferred source of Google.

Here are 10 other puzzle games you can play right now.

Connections

Another puzzle owned by the New York Times, Connections a tricky word game. “Players must choose four groups of four words without making more than four mistakes,” the New York Times written in X. There are also four color-coded difficulty levels for each game; yellow is the easiest, then green, then blue and finally purple. The game is also similar to the BBC quiz show Only Connect, and the host of the show taken by X to point out the connection. See what I did there?

You can play Connections in any web browser but you need a subscription to the New York Times (which starts at $1 per week) to play.

Poisons

Poisons is another puzzle owned by the New York Times but this game resembles a word search more than Wordle and Connections. This game presents a theme each day to help you find words in a grid. In Strands words can appear forward, backward, top to bottom or any number of ways in the traditional word search, and words can also be formed in an “L” shape or have a zigzag on them. When you find a word, tap the first letter and drag your finger to other letters. Every letter in the puzzle is used, so if you still have letters that aren’t connected to words, you’re not done yet.

You can play Strands in any web browser but you need a subscription to the New York Times (again, $1 per week) to play.

Quartiles

Quartiles is a new word game Apple News Plus subscribers can access their iPhone or iPad running iOS 17.5 or later. In this word game, you are given 20 tiles with letters on them and you try to place them to form different words. The longest words are four tiles long, and these are called Quartiles. The game can be difficult but finding just one of the Quartiles is as satisfying as remembering something that’s just on the tip of your tongue.

You can play Quartiles on iPhone or iPad but you need an Apple News subscription (which starts at $13 a month) to play.

Don’t miss any of our unbiased tech content and lab-based reviews. Add CNET as a preferred source of Google.

Many Wordle spinoffs: Dordle, Quordle, Octordle and Sedecordle

Are you ready for a challenge? If you like Wordle and you like puzzle games that require more brain power, you’ll want to check out either Dordle, Quordle, Octordle or Secordle. Each of these word games is similar to Wordle, but they add more rows, columns and words to solve. Each game requires you to simultaneously solve a different number of words at once: Dordle has you solve two words at once, Quordle four at once, Octordle eight at once and Sedecordle a whopping 16. Good luck.

You can play Dordle, Quordle, Octordle or Secordle in any web browser.

Ugly

“Lewdle is a game about dirty words,” reads the content advisory for this game. “If you are likely to be offended by the use of profanity, profanity or profanity, this is probably not for you.” Translation: It’s Wordle but with bad words. The words range from mild – like poopy – to words that would make a sailor blush. Fortunately, despite this game’s content warning, slurs are not included. Like Wordle, gray, yellow and green blocks are used in the same way and there is only one puzzle per day. So go ahead and let the bad words flow!

You can play Ugly in any web browser. You can also download this game from Apple’s App Store or the Google Play shop.

Antiwordle

Tired of seeing gray, yellow and green blocks plastered across your social media feed? Try Antiwordle. While Wordle wants you to guess a word in as few attempts as possible, Antiwordle wants you to avoid the word by guessing as many times as possible. If you can guess, the letters will be gray, yellow or red. Gray means the letter is not in the word and cannot be used again, yellow means the letter is in the word and must be included in every subsequent guess and red means the letter is in the exact position within the word and locked in place. If you can use every letter on the keyboard without getting the word right, you win. In fact, I found this version of Wordle to be more difficult than the original.

You can play Antiwordle in any web browser.

confusing

absurdle bills itself as the “adversarial version” of Wordle. While Wordle points you in the right direction with each guess, Absurdle tries to avoid giving you the right answer. According to the game’s website, “In each guess, Absurdle reveals as little information as possible, changing the secret word if necessary.” confusing not choosing a word at the beginning of the game for the player to guess. Instead, it uses the player’s guesses to find the list of words in an effort to keep the game as simple as possible. The last word may also not include a yellow letter from one of your previous guesses. You can guess as many as you want, which is helpful, and the best score you can get is four. Have fun!

You can play confusing in any web browser.

For more word game fun, check out CNET’s Word tipsTHE best jokes on Wordle and everything you need to know about the word game. You can also check out what to know about other New York Times-owned games, Connections and Poisons.

Check it out: This Technology Will Help Apple Level Up

07:03