Pocket Ninja Journal
Daily Word Games Beyond Wordle: A Map
· 6 min read
Short answer: Wordle is one of many. In English alone there are daily puzzles for guessing a word, grouping words, hunting through a letter grid, swapping letters into place and solving a tiny crossword. Pick by the kind of thinking you enjoy, not by what is trending — this map shows what each one asks of you.
How we put this list together
Every game below was checked on its publisher's own page in September 2026, and each entry says only what that page says: the format and where to play. We have left out price and sign-in details, because those change and differ by country; the publisher's page is the place to check. We link only to official pages, and we never publish answers or hints to anyone's daily puzzle. None of these games has any connection with Pocket Ninja Games — the names belong to their publishers. We make one of the entries, Wordfly, and it is marked as ours.
The overview
Checked in September 2026.
| Game | Where to play | How it works | Suits |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wordle | The New York Times | Guess one hidden word in six tries. | Anyone who wants the shortest possible daily ritual. |
| Connections | The New York Times | Group words that share a common thread. | People who enjoy lateral thinking and spotting traps. |
| Strands | The New York Times | Use every letter on the board to find linked words and the day's hidden theme. | Word search fans who like a theme to work out. |
| Spelling Bee | The New York Times | Make as many words as you can from seven letters. | Players who like to come back to one puzzle through the day. |
| The Mini | The New York Times | A small crossword you can solve in seconds. | Crossword lovers who only have a minute. |
| Quordle | Merriam-Webster | Solve four hidden words at once with nine guesses. | Wordle players who want more to juggle. |
| Waffle | Waffle Studio | Swap letters on a waffle-shaped grid until every word is right, in a limited number of swaps. | People who like rearranging more than guessing. |
| Squaredle | Squaredle | Connect letters in any direction on a grid to find all of the day's words. | Letter-grid hunters who like to clear a board completely. |
| Pinpoint and Crossclimb | Pinpoint: uncover the hidden connection. Crossclimb: unlock a trivia ladder of words. | People who already open LinkedIn every day. | |
| Puzzmo | Puzzmo | A daily lineup of puzzles; the word games include Typeshift, SpellTower, Bongo and a crossword. | Players who want several different puzzles in one place. |
| Wordfly Groups (ours) | iPhone app | Sort 16 words into 4 groups of 4, with up to 4 mistakes. Plays offline. | iPhone players who want a daily puzzle without a signal. |
Guess the word
Wordle from The New York Times is the format most people know: one hidden word, six tries. It suits anyone who wants a daily ritual that is over in a few minutes. Quordle, published by Merriam-Webster, asks you to solve four hidden words at once with nine guesses, so it suits players who like to plan each guess for what it can tell them.
Group the words
Connections, also from The New York Times, gives you a set of words and asks you to group the ones that share a common thread. The difficulty tends to be in the overlap: a word that seems to fit two groups. On LinkedIn, Pinpoint works from the other direction: you uncover the hidden connection behind a set of words. Both suit people who like lateral thinking more than vocabulary.
If grouping puzzles are your thing, our strategies for Wordfly's Groups puzzle apply to any grouping game. They explain how to spot the trap group and spend mistakes wisely — without giving away any daily answers.
Hunt through letters
Squaredle gives you a grid of letters each day; you connect letters in any direction to find all of the day's words, and squares fade once every word that uses them is found. Strands from The New York Times is a themed cousin: you use every letter on the board to find a set of linked words, and part of the puzzle is working out the day's hidden theme. Spelling Bee takes seven letters and asks how many words you can make from them — a puzzle many people dip into several times a day rather than finishing in one sitting.
These are the most open-ended dailies: there is always another word, so they suit people who enjoy the search itself. The same skills carry over to timed grids; our letter grid strategy guide covers them.
Swap, build and fill
Waffle lays out words on a waffle-shaped grid with the letters in the wrong places. You swap letters anywhere on the board, the colours show which ones are in the right position, and you have a limited number of swaps to get every word right. It suits people who like rearranging a known set of letters more than guessing from scratch.
The Mini from The New York Times is a small crossword you can solve in seconds — the full crossword experience scaled to a coffee break. LinkedIn's Crossclimb mixes word skills with trivia: you unlock a ladder of words and complete the hidden clues. And Puzzmo offers a daily lineup of puzzles in one place; its word games include Typeshift, SpellTower, Bongo and a crossword, alongside non-word puzzles.
Wordfly's daily Groups puzzle (ours)
We make Wordfly: Daily Word Puzzles, an iPhone app, so read this entry as a description of our own game. It has a daily Groups puzzle: 16 words to sort into 4 groups of 4, with up to 4 mistakes. The daily puzzles come from a pack bundled with the app, and that pack repeats — in US English it holds 70 puzzles — so after a while you will meet puzzles you have seen before. Because the pack ships with the app, the daily puzzle plays without a connection.
A few plain facts, so you can compare: it is iPhone only (iOS 16 or later), free to download, needs no account and shows ads. There is a streak, and it resets if you miss a day unless a streak freeze saves it; the last seven days of daily puzzles are in the archive for free. Alongside the daily puzzle there are three more modes — Letter Grid, Tile Board and Word Drop — which the mode-by-mode guide explains.
Which one suits you?
- You have two minutes: a guess-the-word puzzle or a small crossword.
- You like finding the catch: a grouping puzzle.
- You like the search more than the finish: a letter hunt such as Squaredle, Strands or Spelling Bee.
- You like tidying things into place: a swap puzzle such as Waffle.
- You are often without a signal: a puzzle stored on your phone. Our note on offline word games shows how to test one before you travel.
Keep the habit, not the pressure
The risk with a map like this is turning it into a to-do list. Five dailies a morning is a chore; one you look forward to is a habit. Choose one or two, tie them to something you already do — the first coffee, the commute — and let a missed day be a missed day. A streak is a record of something you enjoyed, not a debt. We wrote more about that in why a short daily puzzle habit beats long sessions.
Wordfly: Daily Word Puzzles
A daily Groups puzzle and three more word game modes. Free on the App Store, no account, plays offline.
Frequently asked
What are some daily word games like Wordle?
Quordle is the closest: four hidden words at once, nine guesses. If you want something different rather than more of the same, try a grouping puzzle such as Connections, a letter hunt such as Squaredle or Strands, or a letter-swapping puzzle such as Waffle.
Which daily word game is the quickest?
A guess-the-word puzzle like Wordle or a small crossword like the Mini usually takes a few minutes. Spelling Bee and letter-grid puzzles can take as long as you let them, because there is always another word to find.
Is there a daily word puzzle that works offline?
The web puzzles in this list need a connection to load. Wordfly: Daily Word Puzzles keeps its daily Groups puzzle on the phone, so it plays without a signal; its daily puzzles come from a pack bundled with the app that repeats.
Where can I find answers to today's Wordle or Connections?
Not here. We never publish answers or hints to anyone's daily puzzle. If you are stuck, the honest options are to take a break and come back, or to accept a miss and play again tomorrow.
How many daily word games should I play?
One or two you actually enjoy is plenty. A daily habit lasts when it fits a real gap in your day, and it tends to break when a list of puzzles starts to feel like a chore.
More reading: types of word games and what they're called · building a daily puzzle habit · strategies for the daily Groups puzzle.