15 Games Like Wordle To Spend Lunchtime With In 2024

• Where to play: Web browser, iOS, Apple Arcade, and Android

SpellTower has a fun spin on the classic word-search concept. You start with a board that’s filled with random letters, and you’re tasked with finding words via the sole act of swiping on them. The bigger the words, the bigger the score. And yes, there’s a lot more freedom in the swiping action than you’d expect, as you slice rows and connect with letters diagonally without restriction.

The classic mode, called Tower, has you attempting the highest score possible out of 113 tiles. But there are quite a few others in the downloadable version, such as a Zen mode where you can basically play indefinitely, or Double Puzzle, where you have two rows for every word. There are two daily modes as well to compete with others worldwide. SpellTower is available to download on iOS and Android devices, as well as Apple Arcade, or via Puzzmo, which has other games that contribute to a general daily score.

• Where to play: Web browser

If you’re a film enthusiast, every weekday morning has a new Cinematrix puzzle for you to solve. You’re presented with a nine-tile grid that has six main items, which work as clues to guess multiple movies in their corresponding rows.

The clues can encompass actors, a release date range, how many words the title has, and the average Rotten Tomatoes score. The idea is to mix and match clues to come up with as many films as can fit the criteria. You get nine guesses each day, so make the most out of them.

• Where to play: iOS, Apple Arcade, and Android

If you’re looking for some puzzle fun on the go, Crossword Jam+ is one of the best games like Wordle out there. Instead of guessing just one word, you’re given multiple of them to figure out inside a grid.

The one key aspect is that you’re shown all the corresponding letters from the get-go. As such, you’ll have to mix and match until you’ve filled the entire grid. Some anagram puzzles range from two letters to seven letters, in case the first few puzzles aren’t challenging enough.

• Where to play: Web browser

Absurdle creator Sam Hughes introduces the Wordle alternative as “an adversarial version” of the popular game. That sentiment has some truth to it–you aren’t guessing a word, but rather “feeding” a grid with a few words yourself until the word materializes.

Unlike Wordle, you don’t have a limit for guesses, so you can continue inputting words until you either match one of the acceptable options to finish the puzzle, or you give up and start from scratch. If you don’t want to come up with words yourself, you can use the random guess button.

• Where to play: Web browser

If you don’t want to be guessing individual words but rather group them by association, another of the New York Times’ games, Connections, is a great option. The task is to find groups of four items that have some relation with each other.

Each daily puzzle has one solution–whenever you solve a group, it’ll get an assigned color in the grid. You can make up to four mistakes per puzzle, and if you’re really stuck, there’s a shuffle button that rearranges the word positions so you can refresh your mind for a bit.

• Where to play: Web browser, although there’s a similar physical card game

The creators of CultureTags, a card game launched back in 2020 after a Kickstarter campaign, have their own spin in the landscape of games like Wordle. Released on a daily basis, IYKYK asks you to guess a culture tag in three tries.

Yes, you get half as many tries as the regular Wordle, but a hint is released on the second try. Each guess you do has to include an answer for all rows in the phrase. After each one, the color of the tiles will change to indicate how close the attempt was, in a similar fashion to Wordle. If you’re an online person, IYKYK is the one for you.

• Where to play: Web browser

Tired of having to wait until the next day for a new Wordle? Hello Wordl might be a great alternative. The foundation is fairly similar to the original concept–you get six tries to guess a specific word. However, you can also get Mastermind-style feedback after each guess. And, aside from a daily mode, you can also play randomly as many times as you like.

If you want to add some variation, there are three difficulties to pick from. Normal difficulty has you guessing with valid dictionary words. In Hard difficulty, similar to Wordle’s, green letters must stay fixed while yellow letters have to be reused. There’s also Ultra Hard, where yellow letters must move away from where they were clued, while gray clues have to be obeyed.

• Where to play: Web browser

For some, letter-based puzzles might not offer the same thrill anymore. If that’s your case and you’re somewhat good at math, Nerdle has a different challenge for you.

In Nerdle, you have six tries to find a hidden calculation in a daily puzzle. The process is similar, using colored clues and a process of elimination. It’s a nice way of practicing calculations, trying to figure not only numbers but the operators themselves.

• Where to play: Web browser

If you’re one of the few people who actually paid attention to geography class in school, you’re in luck. Worldle offers daily challenges where you need to guess a country or territory within six attempts or less.

You always get a visual cue at the start, but the interesting part comes after at least one guess. You’ll get information on the distance between your guess and the actual answer, cardinal direction, and proximity. If you know your way around the world, Worldle will put you to the test.

• Where to play: Web browser

In the case that music is your thing instead of vocabulary, Heardle makes for a great daily exercise. You have up to six attempts per day to guess a song. The way this is done is you’ll hear the first second of a track, and if you can’t guess it, you can progressively add more time to listen to what comes next.

An interesting twist is that you can get more seconds by failing an attempt, or by manually skipping ahead. For every skip, the number of seconds added increases. If you lose the daily Heardle, don’t fret, as there’s an unlimited mode available as well.

• Where to play: Web browser

Dungleon gets away with not displaying letters or numbers entirely. Instead, you have six guesses to find out a dungeon’s composition, using a number of pre-made icons mimicking an RPG’s dungeon.

The basics stay the same. Icons that are in the right spot will appear green, while those that are correct but not in the correct position will be yellow. Those that aren’t part of the puzzle are red instead. The catch is that there are some rules you’ll discover as you play, such as how each dungeon has at least one hero and one monster, or how some icons only appear alongside others.

• Where to play: Web browser

Crosswordle is an interesting mix between the usual crossword and what other games like Wordle offer. The grid you’re given already has all the letters, including a few highlighted in green and yellow to give you some clues. Your task, then, is to swap letters around until you get them to the right position, up to 17 times per puzzle.

While the number of available swaps might entice you to go wild with your attempts, you’re moving a single letter at a time. Deducing what the words can be ahead of time–similar to Wordle–is key to getting the puzzle done as promptly as possible. There’s both a daily challenge and a practice mode in case you want to prepare yourself for the next challenge.

• Where to play: Web browser

If you’re a film connoisseur and you’ve already tackled the daily Cinematrix puzzle, Framed introduces itself as one of the games like Wordle that has more similarity to Heardle. Making use of an image provided daily, you’ll have to guess the name of the movie.

Like Heardle, each incorrect guess reveals a new (and usually more revealing) frame from the movie. If you leave the input blank and press submit instead, you’ll automatically skip to the next image. The frames aren’t just from the intro of a movie but instead selected at random. Sometimes seeing a character might provide more help than a shot of a landscape, but who knows, you might get lucky on your first try as well.

• Where to play: Web browser

Sometimes guessing just one word a day isn’t enough. Quordle understands this by multiplying the number of words up to four simultaneously. Instead of solving the puzzles separately, each guess you write–you get nine per puzzle– accounts for all four of them.

As such, you’ll have to be wary of the attempts you make, and follow the green and yellow letters closely if you want to try and guess all of them. Do you focus on one word at a time, or try using more guesses in hopes of getting closer to the four answers? It’s an interesting challenge. Once you’ve completed a daily puzzle, you’ll get access to a weekly challenge. There’s also a practice mode in case you need to take a breather.

• Where to play: Web browser

The premise of LoLdle is simple: You need to guess the League of Legends champions correctly. If you have a vast knowledge of Riot’s MOBA (one of our picks for the best free games to play right now), there are quite a few ways to put it to good use.

Classic mode gives you clues on every try for a daily puzzle. You begin by inputting any champion’s name, and you’ll receive a list of pointers such as gender, position, species, the resource they use, and so on. But there are other ways to guess a champion. You can make guesses with in-game quotes, abilities, an image selection, and even a set of emojis.