There’s a lot of interest in daily puzzle games right now. The New York Times has a great collection of games like its crossword, Wordle, Connections, and Strands. Apple is in the mix with crosswords and more in Apple News Plus. Zach Gage’s puzzle gaming platform Puzzmo has some fun twists on classic games and was acquired by Hearst. Even LinkedIn has games now, and it turns out that they’re actually good.
Sure, the games are fun, but they can also be reliable ways for the companies that offer them to make money from subscriptions. The New York Times puts a some features for its games behind a paywall. Apple’s games are only available to Apple News Plus subscribers. And Netflix is launching a daily word game to bolster its paid subscription for mobile games.
Here’s all of our coverage of news and word games. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to try to finish Connections without throwing my phone into the ocean.
- The New Yorker is launching a new daily puzzle game: Catalogues.
You have to sort a list of seven items based on a theme that you need to figure out, and you have five guesses to do it. Thankfully, you can ask for a clue if you need one.
Check the game out right here.
The New Yorker’s Catalogues[The New Yorker]
- A toad-ally great word game.
Puzzmo just added Ribbit — an adorable anagram game — to its permanent rotation. I’ve been playing the game for months and it’s become part of my morning routine; it straddles a nice line between being challenging and brief, a nice way to spend a few minutes with a cup of coffee.
Wordle is turning into a primetime TV game show on NBC
NurPhoto via Getty ImagesWordle could be the next great game show. NBC has greenlit a game show version of The New York Times’ popular puzzle game, and it’s set to debut in 2027 with Savannah Guthrie as the host. The show will be produced by Universal Television Alternative Studio “in partnership with” Jimmy Fallon’s production company and the NYT, according to a press release.
Here’s an overview of how the new “fast-paced format” will work in game show form, from the NYT:
Read Article >- Yahoo’s relaunched games platform is getting a new take on solitaire.
Following a new push that kicked off with a daily Candy Crush puzzle game, Yahoo Games is getting Yahoo Solitaire Roadtrip, which has standard solitaire and a “Road Trip” mode where you can tackle different challenges to unlock things like backgrounds and card decks.
Image: Yahoo - April Fools’ 2026: Mini to Micro.
For April Fools’ Day, The New York Times is sharing a “Micro Crossword,” which has just three boxes to fill in. The NYT is also launching April Fools’ Day-themed versions of other puzzles, too, including a maximalist Connections.
1/4Image: The New York Times - What is, a Jeopardy mobile game?
This spring, Peacock is bringing a new Jeopardy! game to its mobile app. It will feature daily trivia rounds straight from the Jeopardy! team, along with shareable scores and streak challenges.
Image: NBCUniversal / Peacock Wordle’s creator is back with a game that aims to ease players into cryptic crosswords
Image: Josh WardleA few years after selling Wordle to the New York Times, creator Josh Wardle has returned with a new word game — albeit one that’s quite a bit trickier. Wardle and a team of collaborators have just released Parseword, a game that tries to make cryptic crosswords easier to understand. “Cryptics are beautiful and rich puzzles but are notoriously hard to learn,” the site’s about page explains. “We wanted to make a game that captures the joy of solving cryptics while making them more accessible to everyone.”
In a profile in the New Yorker, Wardle explained that he struggled with viral success of Wordle and the attention that followed, but he found some refuge in cryptic crosswords, which differ from standard crossword puzzles in that the clues themselves are puzzles. Parseword not only streamlines things to make them more accessible, but also offers a number of tutorials, starter puzzles, and some helpful videos to introduce newcomers to the genre. It also includes three game modes of varying difficulty so veterans can still play.
Read Article >- A Mid(i) crossword.
The New York Times is launching the Midi, a mid-sized crossword puzzle for subscribers that sits between the Mini and the full-size Daily Crossword. Looks fun.
Mini, Midi, Daily. Image: The New York Times - Candy Crush has been Wordled.
Yahoo Games is launching a new daily puzzle game based off of Candy Crush, called Crushable. A new level will be available every day.
Image: King / Yahoo - The NYT would like to have a word.
After soft-launching last year, the New York Times is launching its new two-player word game Crossplay. It’s essentially a new version of Words With Friends or Scrabble, and unlike most offerings from the Times, it’ll be available as a standalone app.
New York Times Games Introduces First 2-Player Word Game, Crossplay[The New York Times Company]
- Your year in NYT games.
The New York Times games now have their own Spotify Wrapped-like recap of the past year. The recap is accessible in the NYT Games mobile apps or in a mobile browser. You’ll be shocked to learn that Wordle was the NYT’s most-played game in 2025.
Your Year in Games[The New York Times]
Netflix is turning its biggest shows into daily puzzle games
Image: NetflixNetflix is getting into the daily puzzle games trend in a big new way. As part of a bunch of games announcements, the company revealed it would be releasing a new daily puzzle games app called Netflix Puzzled that will feature a bunch of puzzles themed around Netflix’s biggest franchises.
“Get ready for a plethora of daily puzzles featuring Netflix favorites such as Stranger Things, Squid Game, KPop Demon Hunters, Bridgerton, and Emily in Paris,” according to a description from a Netflix blog post. “You’ll find classics like sudoku, fresh takes on old favorites like crosswords and word searches, and more.”
Read Article >You can now make your own Wordle puzzles
Image: The New York TimesIf you’ve ever wanted to make your own Wordle puzzle to challenge (or annoy) your family and friends, The New York Times has announced an official tool that lets you do that.
If you have an All Access or Games subscription, you can make a 4-7 letter puzzle with the NYT’s Wordle creation tool. (You’ll be able to add an optional clue if you want to give the people you share your puzzle a bit of help.) When you’ve made the puzzle, you’ll get a unique URL you can share with others, and they don’t need to have a subscription to be able to play it.
Read Article >- The New Yorker has a great new daily puzzle game.
In Shuffalo, you’ll spell words from scrambled letters, but every time you do, the game adds another letter to spell around. You can find Shuffalo on the publication’s Puzzles and Games page.
Introducing Shuffalo, a Daily Word Game from The New Yorker[The New Yorker]
Wordle has achievements now
Image: The New York TimesWant to flex your Wordle habit beyond just keeping your streak? The New York Times has added badges to recognize certain achievements in Wordle, Spelling Bee, and Connections.
“Have you achieved the infamous Wordle in 1? What about the Perfect Connections Puzzle? How many Pangrams are under your Spelling Bee belt? Badges are rewards you can earn through gameplay that let you look back on the moments that made your NYT Games journey special,” according to the NYT. In the app, you can even see your badges in “your very own trophy case.”
Read Article >- And another one.
Another major news organization is jumping into the daily puzzle arena. This time it’s USA Today with a new site creatively called “Play,” which has some barebones puzzle options, but also attempts to mimic the classic newspaper games page with comics and horoscopes.
Free Daily Puzzles, Games & Horoscopes[USA TODAY PLAY]
Jimmy Fallon wants to turn Wordle into a TV show
Jimmy Fallon is helping make Wordle into a television series, Deadline reports. NBC is piloting the Wordle game show with the help of Fallon’s production company, and the show is currently filming in the UK. Savannah Guthrie will host.
Around when Wordle really started to blow up, Jimmy Fallon once spent a whole segment of The Tonight Show solving a puzzle in front of his audience. (The segment aired right before The New York Times bought Wordle from creator Josh Wardle in early 2022.) Fingers crossed this TV show isn’t just one person muddling through a puzzle like Fallon did — I got frustrated watching the segment because I just wanted to make my own guesses. Instead, I hope this Wordle TV show takes cues from Lingo, a game show where teams compete to quickly solve Wordle-like puzzles for prize money. It’s much snappier.
Read Article >- Merriam-Webster has a cute word game to add to your rotation.
In Reunion, your goal is to shift letter tiles around so that they spell words across the board. Green tiles mean they’re in the right place.
It took me an embarrassing 68 moves to solve today’s puzzle. How did you do?
- Alphadots is Bloomberg’s new daily puzzle.
“Every day we’ll give you a chart, a clue and a hidden phrase, and it’s up to you to find the answer,” Bloomberg says. You can try it here. It’s no Wordle, but I had fun trying out today’s edition.
How to Play Alphadots, Our Daily Word Puzzle[Bloomberg]
Why are online puzzle games having a moment?
Hooked on LinkedIn’s Queens? Gotta extend your Wordle streak in the New York Times games app before you start your day? You’re in good company on today’s Vergecast episode. Allison Johnson is joined by Simon Anthony and Mark Goodliffe, world-class puzzle champs and hosts of the delightful Cracking the Cryptic, a YouTube channel where they solve a puzzle on camera every single day.
They specialize in sudoku — and not just the classic number games you might be familiar with. Simon and Mark tackle mind-bending, seemingly impossible puzzles, working through it all in real time, sometimes over the course of several hours. What happens when you get stuck? How can you tell the difference between a puzzle made by a human and a computer-generated one? Why are we addicted to puzzle games all of a sudden? They help us crack the clues.
Read Article >- The NYT giveth, the NYT taketh away.
It’s been less than two weeks since the NYT Games app added its latest free offering, the domino-based Pips, but now we’re paying the price: the Mini Crossword has been paywalled, in a devastating blow to my morning routine. Tiles and Letter Boxed now need a subscription too, but I never played them anyway.
- The NYT’s newest game is all about dominoes.
Pips is the “first original logic puzzle” from The New York Times, and you can play it right now. Took me one minute and 28 seconds to complete today’s medium difficulty puzzle.
LinkedIn’s Mini Sudoku is a clever twist on the classic puzzle
Image: LinkedInI love sudoku, so I just couldn’t resist checking out LinkedIn’s new Mini Sudoku game that it launched this week. Two puzzles in, I can already tell you that I like it a lot.
The rules in Mini Sudoku are quite similar to regular sudoku: you need to fill in all of the blank spots of a puzzle with a number, but a number can’t repeat in a line, row, or box. But the twist with Mini Sudoku is that it uses six numbers instead of nine, meaning the game has smaller puzzles that are a little easier to take in across a mobile phone screen. You can also make notes and ask for hints if you need them.
Read Article >- LinkedIn’s next game is a new take on sudoku.
Mini Sudoku, which uses six numbers instead of nine, is made with the Japanese publisher Nikoli, which helped popularize the game, and Thomas Snyder, a sudoku world champion.
Image: LinkedIn - The Particle news app now has an AI-generated daily crossword puzzle.
The crosswords are “human-edited” and themed on “stories from current news,” according to a popup in the Particle app.
There’s a leaderboard, too, and it includes completion times from LLMs like Claude 4 Opus and Gemini 2.5 Pro. They trounced me today.
I’m sorry for showing today’s completed puzzle! I can’t replay ones that I missed to show a blank board. Image: Particle
