Games like Wordle: daily word puzzles to play next

The closest games keep Wordle's rules and change the size. Dordle, Quordle and Octordle put two, four or eight boards side by side, and every word you type lands on all of them, so a good guess has to work on several boards at once. Sedecordle, Duotrigordle, Sexaginta-quattuordle, Polydle and Kilordle take the same idea to sixteen, thirty-two, sixty-four, any number you choose and a thousand boards. Xordle hides two words with no letters in common. Wordly and Word Hurdle keep one board but make the answer six letters long, and Word Hurdle brings a new word every 12 hours. Septle goes to seven letters and gives you eight guesses. Hurdle on Arkadium chains four ordinary rounds and ends with a fifth built from your four answers.

A second group keeps the single word and changes the clues. In Lirdle and Fibble one colour in every row is false, so you have to work out which; Fibble gives you nine guesses to make up for it. Qwertle colours a tile by how near your letter is to the right one on a keyboard, Warmle by how near it is in the alphabet, and Fusele gives each of its seven rows a different rule. SPAN, Diffle and Letroso hide the length of the answer, and Polygonle shows it as a row of shapes that give away repeated letters. Alphalock gives counts in the manner of Mastermind instead of tiles, Betweenle only says whether the answer comes before or after your guess in the dictionary, and Antiwordle asks you to avoid the answer instead of finding it.

A third group fits Wordle guessing into a grid. Thirdle, Squardle, Crossle and Crosswordle (crosswordle.org) make you solve several crossing words at once, and Waffle hands you a grid of scrambled words to swap back into place. Phrazle spreads the colours across a whole phrase, and Cluword adds a cryptic clue. Phoodle, Football Wordle, Canuckle and Taylordle (taylordle.org) keep the rules and draw every answer from one subject: food, footballers' surnames, Canada and Taylor Swift. hello wordl is a plain copy of Wordle with a shared word for today and a word length you can change, and Wordle Global runs the same game in about 90 languages.

If you like the daily habit more than the guessing, the other New York Times puzzles are different games that take a few minutes each: Connections, Strands, and Spelling Bee, which needs a New York Times Games subscription for the full puzzle. Nerdle keeps Wordle's six guesses and coloured tiles, but the answer is an eight-character sum such as 12+35=47 and every guess has to be a true equation; more of those are on games like Nerdle (/games-like-nerdle). Contexto and Semantle hide a word too, but you find it by meaning, not spelling; more of those are on games like Contexto (/games-like-contexto).

Where to start: Dordle or Quordle if you want more Wordle, Lirdle or Qwertle if you want the same word with harder clues, Thirdle or Waffle if you like grids, Nerdle if you would rather work with numbers, and Connections or Contexto if you want something different. Every daily game with Wordle's letter-by-letter colour feedback, including Wordle in other languages and on many more themes, is on the daily Wordle-style games page (/daily-wordle-games), more multi-board games are on games like Quordle (/games-like-quordle), and the word games that play differently are on daily word games (/daily-word-games).