Beside the Point

Beside the Point is a browser word game with no fixed solutions. Every day brings a numbered puzzle of three rounds, and each round shows three descriptive words. The warm-up round of No. 026 on 7 November 2026 was "Crawling", "Bouncy" and "Twinkling". You type a word or short phrase of up to 40 characters that you think fits all three, and an AI judge reads it and decides whether the link is fair.

There is no hidden answer to find. A literal answer, a joke or a stretch of the imagination can all pass, as long as the judge can follow it. When it turns you down you can try again, and the game keeps count of your attempts. It has no timer and no lives.

After the third round comes the twist. The game asks you to find one idea that connects the three answers you just gave, which is often harder than the rounds themselves because you made the material yourself. You can skip this step for the day.

Players may publish their answers anonymously. Each morning the homepage at besidethepoint.app takes the previous day's clues apart in what it calls "The Daily Index", a wall of other players' answers and final connections that you can rearrange or filter. Reading it after you play shows how far apart strangers' minds went from the same nine words. Answers appear as players typed them, and a few are crude, so parents may want to read the index before a child does.

The game is made by Paul Langley in Berlin, who lists himself as the operator in the site's legal notice. The About page says clue words are drawn from a hat and each one is used only once. No account is needed, as the game gives your browser an anonymous ID to keep your progress and streak. It suits players who like word association, wordplay and arguing a case more than hunting for one right word.