Recommendations

Games like Wordle

Wordle takes three minutes. Here are eight more daily word puzzles to fill the rest of your coffee break — each scratches a different itch.

1. Daily word ladder

   1. Poople

   Change one letter at a time to turn the day's start word into POOP. There's no guessing — the challenge is finding the shortest route, and par tells you how short that is. About a minute a day.

   Best for: players who'd rather plan than guess.

   Play Poople now

2. Word ladder

   2. Weaver

   A minimalist word ladder between two 4-letter words, with a new start and end word each day. Poople's closest cousin.

   Best for: word-ladder purists.

3. Grouping puzzle

   3. Connections

   Sort 16 words into four hidden categories. Red herrings are the whole point.

   Best for: lateral thinkers who love an “aha” moment.

4. Word finding

   4. Spelling Bee

   Make as many words as you can from seven letters arranged in a honeycomb; every word must use the center letter.

   Best for: people with a big vocabulary and a long lunch break.

5. Themed word search

   5. Strands

   Find theme words hidden in a letter grid, plus a “spangram” that spans the board and names the theme.

   Best for: word-search fans.

6. Word grid

   6. Squaredle

   Trace words through a small grid of letters by connecting neighboring squares. Surprisingly deep.

   Best for: Boggle lovers.

7. Letter swapping

   7. Waffle

   Six interlocking words with the letters scrambled. Swap tiles to fix them all, in as few swaps as possible.

   Best for: fans of Wordle's colored-tile feedback.

8. Meaning-based guessing

   8. Semantle

   Guess a secret word using similarity scores based on meaning rather than spelling. Tough, and strangely addictive.

   Best for: players who want a real challenge.