Games like Strands: daily themed word grids to play next

Start with the themed grids closest to the Strands hunt. Word Salad from Bleppo is a daily themed word grid on themes such as mammals, gemstones or European cities: bubbles show how many words there are and how long, every word you swipe drops off, the letters above fall into the gap, and by the end every letter has been used. In Wordrop, from Puzzleship, themed words hide in a grid, and each find drops the letters above into the gap, so the board changes as you go, with six boards a day from very easy to ultra hard. Puzzle Words, the Wordshake daily puzzle, gives a titled theme, a row of blanks for each answer and a 4x4 grid to trace them in. Downwords, a Lil Snack game on the Los Angeles Times site, takes a pop culture theme each day and turns the word search into a maze: finding the theme words opens a path down the grid to keys, doors and a treasure at the bottom. Daily Themed Word Search, an iPhone app from Raapchik Games, is a classic word search with a list on one topic each day, such as famous artists or war movies, for players who like the theme more than the tracing.

In Strands every letter belongs to a word. Wend, LinkedIn's daily, is built on that rule: it tells you how many words there are and how long, and you trace them through neighbouring letters so that every tile is used once. Griddles keeps the rule and adds a category, but the letters of a word do not have to touch, in a 4x4 or 5x5 grid, with 54 grids a day. Cell Tower splits a tall grid of letters into connected regions that each spell a word, with one way to cover every cell. Fissle hides four words in a 4x4 grid that you clear with as few words as you can, with a themed 5x5 grid beside it. SpellSweep and Word Be-Gone ask you to cover or clear a whole board of letters with words; SpellSweep scores you on how few words you need, and Word Be-Gone, a David L. Hoyt puzzle on GoComics, needs a GoComics subscription. Ribbit on Puzzmo asks you to keep tracing words along the lines of a 4x4 grid until every tile has turned into a frog. Zanagrams from PZL games also joins its sixteen letters with paths, and letters drop away once no remaining word needs them. Gridogram uses traced words to fill in a hidden quote, so the theme is a sentence instead of a category.

If you liked the clue at the top of Strands, try games where every word has its own clue. Zaggle gives a 4x4 grid where each hidden word comes with a clue and its length, so it plays like a small crossword traced through letters. Riddle Grid does the same with cryptic clues, and its answers weave around each other in the grid. Word Snake from Puzzleship turns clue answers into paths that wind through the grid, with six puzzles a day in different clue styles.

If you want more tracing and less theme, Squaredle gives one small square of letters a day with a list of words to find, a Word of the Day and a smaller Express grid. Squares works the same way with a 4x4 grid and a 3x3 mini. Pathwords changes how letters connect, using bridges instead of plain neighbours. SpellTower on Puzzmo makes the letters you use vanish, so the order you find words in matters. Wordfall works the same way on a 5x5 board, built so it can be cleared completely if you pick the right order.

For a gentle start, play Wend and Squaredle beside Strands. For something closer to the Strands theme hunt, add Word Salad, Wordrop and Puzzle Words. For the every-letter rule on its own, try Griddles and Cell Tower.