Wordle was a huge viral hit early this year, prompting a million-dollar buyout from the New York Times. The daily word challenge is still going strong, but if you’re getting tired of the format or just want something similar to chew on each day, you’re in luck.
Wordle’s success may have prompted an influx of crappy clones, but it also inspired some very creative variants that have essentially formed a new genre. These deduction games are all alike in that a single puzzle is set each day, so you can compare scores and solutions with your friends.
It’s also worth noting that all of these are web apps rather than App Store downloads – but you can add any of them to your Home Screen for easy access and persistent scorekeeping. And they’re all completely free to play!
Here are seven of our favorite Wordle alternatives to check out: how many will make it into your daily rotation?
Quordle
There are now a bunch of spin-offs that task you to solve multiple Wordles at once, but four-at-a-time variant Quordle seems to be the sweet spot before things get too crazy. Here, you have up to nine guesses to uncover the hidden answers, so consider each move carefully and try to kill four words with one stone.
Nerdle
This one’s for the number fans out there. Each guess is an eight-digit calculation, and like Wordle you’ll be given hints as to which numbers and operators are accurate. All guesses must be numerically correct, so you can’t just smash buttons and hope for the best.
Absurdle
At first glance, this is standard Wordle. But some crafty code behind the scenes makes it into an “adversarial” experience, in which the game does everything it can to stop you winning. That means the solution changes after each guess to reveal as little information as possible to the player, until you narrow things down so much only one possible word remains.
Worldle
This geographical take on Wordle won’t challenge your vocabulary, but it does require a decent knowledge of the world map. Your job is to identify a country or territory from nothing but its shape. Helpfully, wrong moves will give you further clue, including how far away the target country is from your guess.
Squardle
A single glance at this puzzle might lose a few casual Wordle fans, and it’s true this is one of the more complicated variants. But fans of crosswords or sudoku will be at home here, in a grid-like challenge that presents six criss-crossing words to solve in ten guesses. It’s not easy, but it’s easier than it looks.
Semantle
This one can be hard to get your head around, but it’s a neat concept. Guess any word (of any length!) and you’ll be graded on how “semantically similar” it is to the secret word. It’s about the meaning, not the spelling. An indicator will tell you if your guess is within the 1000 closest words, and eventually you can narrow down to the solution.
Redactle
This clever puzzle will make you feel like a code-cracking spy, as you try to figure out the subject of a random Wikipedia article. The catch? Most of the words are missing. Guess a word and any instances of it will be revealed, as you try to un-redact just enough of the text to deduce its title. Warning: this may take you hundreds of guesses.
Finally, if those seven variants aren’t enough, we recently rounded up the best word games for iOS that will appeal to fans of Wordle.