You may have become addicted to the New York Times’ suite of games—titles like Wordle, Connections, and Spelling Bee. But if you’re anything like me, you find they’re over too quickly and wish you could play more. Fortunately, Puzzmo is here to scratch that itch.
What Is Puzzmo?
Puzzmois a gaming platform offering a suite of short puzzle games that can all be played in a few minutes. It’s the co-creation of indie game developer Zach Gage, who you may know from iOS titles likeSpellTowerandTypeShift.
The site is owned by Hearst, which means you’re likely to see Puzzmo puzzles pop up in places like the San Francisco Chronicle. But you can play most of the games on Puzzmo.com for free; each game refreshes daily with a new puzzle to solve, so you don’t have to worry about any of them going stale.
It’s the perfect site for those that enjoyquick web games.
What Kind of Games Does Puzzmo Have?
If you likeword or spelling games, you’re in luck, because those comprise the bulk of the offerings on Puzzmo. But even fans of graphical puzzles or logic games will find something to like here, and the site is constantly experimenting with new titles.
Here are some of the best…
Cross|Word
Cross|Wordis, as the title says, a crossword puzzle. Read the clues and try to fill in each square. If you get stuck you can click on theHintbutton for another clue.
What makes Cross|Word stand out from other crosswords on the web (including the NYT) is the focus of its word selection: instead of being packed with literary and historical references, Puzzmo’s take on the format has a more Millennial/Gen Z bent, with plenty of clues based on internet slang, video games, and even anime.
But more traditional players need not fret, as there are still plenty of clues dabbling in historical figures, geography, and the Greek alphabet.
Pile-Up Poker
Pile-Up Pokeris a newer Puzzmo game. It’s basically a poker-themed Sudoku, presenting players with a 4x4 grid and cards that must be placed on the grid to create poker hands.
Each game of Pile-Up Poker is played over four rounds, and you’re given five cards at a time. you may place four of them on the board anywhere you want, and the fifth card is discarded. Once the board is filled, a score is calculated based on created hands (both horizontally and vertically)—even if the discarded cards form a hand on their own!
InFlipart, you must fit a series of different pieces neatly inside a box, with no overlaps or empty spaces. The pieces are pretty diverse, ranging from squares to various Z-shapes to long straight pieces; a bit like Tetris on steroids.
The pieces are stuck in place at a single point, so you can’t drag them to where they need to go, only rotate them around a single square (helpfully indicated with a series of dots). Once you’ve mastered the rules and understand how different pieces work together, you’ll be solving each day’s puzzle in no time. My personal best is 12 seconds; can you beat it?
Don’t let the name fool you—Really Bad Chessis an excellent game. The “really bad” moniker comes more from how it’s likely to annoy many chess purists. At first, it seems like a normal chess game, where you must checkmate your computer opponent.
But look at the pieces, and you’ll see that you don’t have the standard selection of king, queen, two bishops, two knights, two rooks, and eight pawns. Instead, the assortment is almost completely random, and so is your opponent’s.
While each side will always have one king, you could end up with three queens, five bishops, and no pawns at all! Whatever you end up with, the goal is still to go after the other side’s king—and, if your computer opponent has more powerful pieces than you, this can be rather tricky.
How Much Does Puzzmo Cost?
Just like the basic NYT games suite, Puzzmo is free—as long as you’re willing to watch some ads. The frequency of ads isn’t annoying; you’ll get maybe one per day, right before starting one of the games. It’s just a short ad followed by a Puzzmo promo roll, then you’ll get to enjoy your puzzle-y goodness.
Puzzmo Plus also offers leaderboards and customizable avatars, if that’s your thing. All of these features are available for $39 a year (no monthly option is available). That’s $10 less than a yearly subscription toNYT Games, which is $50 a year, though that service does periodically offer discounts that make it cheaper with more features (like access to other New York Times content).
If you’re curious about Puzzmo Plus but not ready to hand over $39 just yet, the site offers a free two-week trial.
What Are Puzzmo’s Best Features and Why Should You Use It?
As I’ve already outlined, the quality of games at Puzzmo is extremely high, thanks to the titles I mentioned above and others like SpellTower and Typeshift, the latter of which is part of my daily rotation.
Even though the site only launched in 2023, its archive is already pretty extensive, making a Puzzmo Plus account well worth its cost for those days you need some serious mental stimulation. And competitive users will really appreciate the sheer amount of score and time info the site keeps.
But, even if you play for free and don’t care about stats, Puzzmo is still worth a daily visit during your lunch break or before bedtime, especially once you’ve played out all the New York Times’ options.
