Lexrific

Lexrific starts each day with two words and asks you to walk from one to the other. The example it gives is winter to lullaby by way of snow, silence and sleep. Each word you add should be close in meaning to the one before, and the app shows how close every guess is to the goal, so you can feel whether a step is heading the right way. The first release showed that closeness as a percentage. Version 1.0.1 turned it into a thermometer. Closeness is judged by a trained language model, which rewards the kind of leaps a reader makes without thinking.

The puzzle is the same for everyone, numbered by day. When you reach the goal, the app compares your chain with the shortest one it knows and tells you where you rank among the day's solvers; the result card shares as a row of squares with the step count. A hint reveals the next word but costs a step, and giving up shows the optimal path.

There are two ways to play. Classic lets you type your own bridge words with live warm and cold feedback. Compass offers eight suggested neighbours at each step, a gentler version of the same puzzle.

Lexrific is made by Nathan Feeser at Nerf Labs and came out in May 2026. It has no timers and no ads, and no account is needed; signing in keeps history across devices and joins the leaderboard. It works offline once the day's puzzle is loaded, and streaks and optional reminders keep the habit going.