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Wordle took over our routines back in late 2021, and for some, it has been a recurring presence since. But there are multiple games like Wordle out there to try. If you're looking for a twist on the concept of guessing a word in a few tries, or a different take altogether with a similar spirit, there's a lot to choose from.If you haven't played Wordle yet, it goes like this: Every day there's a five-letter word selected that you have to guess in six tries. If you type a word and you see a green highlight, it means the letter is in the word, and also in the correct spot. If you see yellow, it means the letter is part of the word, but it's in the wrong spot. The word is released daily at midnight, and of course, bragging on social media about your result is more than encouraged. Wordle owner the New York Times did introduce an archive in May 2024 that allows you to go back and solve old puzzles, but that requires being a paid subscriber.Some of the Wordle alternatives on this list will feel quite familiar if you're knowledgeable of the original. Different rules, as well as distinct themes of what you're trying to guess, set a different tone for each from the get-go. Sometimes you'll be trying to piece together the name of a country or the title of a song. Others offer more unorthodox experiences, such as involving RPG references. If you have been feeling fatigued about the Wordle formula, there are puzzle games that will scratch a similar daily itch while offering something fresh.In 2025, the landscape of games like Wordle is seeing slower but still steady growth. If you don't know where to start looking, here are 15 options that are sure to cater to everyone's area of expertise and likings. As a reminder, these games are generally playable across PC, typically in your browser, as well as your phone or tablet. For more, be sure to check out our recommendations for the best 25 free games to play in 2025. PuzzmoWhere to play: Web browserLast year, we highlighted SpellTower from the Puzzmo collection. It remains a fun spin on the classic word-search concept, where 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.But there's more to Puzzmo than just SpellTower. Typeshift, for example, gives you columns of random letters and asks you to complete words in a highlighted row. When you successfully spell a word, the letters you use turn solid. To complete the puzzle, every letter needs to be turned solid. But you can use letters more than once to make that happen.If you have access to Puzzmo Plus, Cube Clear is an interesting iteration of SpellTower. You're presented with a 36-letter grid, and the trick is that whenever you spell a word, the letters then disappear. Longer words score higher points, and adjacent tiles disappear after use as well, which causes the remaining tiles to fall to the bottom of the grid. At the time of publication, you can start a 7-day free trial to check it out. But if anything, SpellTower continues to be an excellent choice. CinematrixWhere to play: Web browserIf 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. Crossword Jam+Where to play: iOS, Apple Arcade, and AndroidIf 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. AbsurdleWhere to play: Web browserAbsurdle 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. ConnectionsWhere to play: Web browserIf 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. IYKYKWhere to play: Web browser, although there's a similar physical card gameThe 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. See at Amazon Hello WordlWhere to play: Web browserTired 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. Nerdle Where to play: Web browserFor 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. WorldleWhere to play: Web browserIf 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. HeardleWhere to play: Web browserIn 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. DungleonWhere to play: Web browserDungleon 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. CrosswordleWhere to play: Web browserCrosswordle 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. FramedWhere to play: Web browserIf 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. Cine2NerdleWhere to play: Web browserCine2Nerdle is a great alternative for Framed, acting as a community-led microcosm of cinephiles. You get a grid with 16 tiles, and you must swap to organize them into rows, or columns, to represent movies. Logically, there's room for four movies, but each puzzle has a fifth film, adding some extra challenge. You get 15 swipes a pop, but as with these games, the fewer the better.Aside from the original mode, there's Reserval, which asks you to find five hidden themes in each grid, and Logical, which gives you a list of rules to follow: All antagonists are in row 2, no two characters from the same row or column have appeared in a movie together, and so on.If you're feeling like practicing before tackling the daily challenge, you can access the archive with hundreds of past puzzles. Moreover, there are user-created puzzles, or you can make your own. GamedleWhere to play: Web browserThere are never enough game references in your life, and Gamedle is here to put your knowledge to the test with a visual twist. In essence, you're shown a blurred video game cover, and you get six attempts to guess correctly. If you input the correct franchise, it will count as yellow, while both franchise and saga will net you the win.Different modes include one where you guess games based on artwork pieces alone, or even keywords. There are weekly themed challenges, too, such as most review-bombed games or games with the best trailers, for example. A nice detail is that you'll get some extra information on the games themselves, so it serves as a discovery app to boot.
