Games like Wordle: 12 daily puzzles to play next
Finished today's Wordle? Here are twelve daily games to try next, for fans of words, maps, numbers, films and food.
Wordle took a very simple idea, one puzzle a day and the same one for everybody, and turned it into a habit for millions of people. Josh Wardle released it in October 2021, and The New York Times bought it a few months later. It also started a whole genre, and there is now a daily game for nearly anything you can guess.
If you finish your Wordle in three minutes and want something else with your coffee, here are twelve good places to go next. All of them work in a browser, and none needs an account to play.
Full disclosure: we make three of these. Departle, Reciple and Bonkle are ours, and we’ve said so below.
If you like words
Connections
Sixteen words, four hidden groups. Wordle’s stablemate at The New York Times, and the one most likely to make you shout at your phone, because there’s always a word that seems to fit two groups.
Quordle
Four words solved at once, with every guess going into all four grids. The natural next step up from Wordle.
Waffle
All the letters are already on the grid, just in the wrong places. You swap them around until six words read correctly, with a limited number of swaps to do it in.
Contexto
Find the secret word by guessing, with each guess ranked by how close its meaning is. It rewards thinking about what a word is about rather than how it’s spelled.
If you like maps
Worldle
Name the country from its outline. Every miss tells you how far away you are and in which direction.
Globle
A game of hot and cold on a globe: every country you guess lights up warmer the closer it is to the answer.
Tradle
Guess the country from a chart of what it exports. It’s harder than it sounds, and you’ll learn something.
Departle (ours)
A real departure board from an airport somewhere in the world, written in the local language. Read the destinations and airlines, and name the airport in five guesses.
If you like numbers or films
Nerdle
Wordle with arithmetic: work out the hidden equation, one correct sum at a time.
Framed
Name the film from a single still. Each wrong guess shows you another frame.
If you like food
Reciple (ours)
A recipe card with the dish’s name torn off. Guess a dish and the ingredients it shares light up, so carbonara might get you closer to cacio e pepe. Name it and the full recipe is yours.
If you’d rather bonk something
Bonkle (ours)
Most daily games are about knowing things. Bonkle is about aim: a daily brick-breaker where everyone gets the same board and the same monster, with five volleys to clear it.
Where to find even more
DLEs.io keeps a huge directory of daily games, sorted by topic. If you have a niche interest, there’s a good chance somebody has made a daily game about it.
