The most popular web games and puzzle apps right now

23 Feb 2022

With the online daily word game Wordle growing fast all over Australia and the world, we check out this latest craze and other popular games and puzzles you can share with friends or family.

There are some great reasons to play game and puzzle apps on your smartphone. For one, many are designed to help you stay mentally stimulated throughout the day – no bad thing now that you’re no longer preoccupied with work. In some cases the mini-challenges or brain-teasers also come with an element of social interaction. Playing against and sharing results with friends, family or even complete strangers is another healthy way to stay connected to people when you’re spending time alone.

With these benefits in mind, why don’t we take a closer look at some of the most popular web games and puzzle apps right now?

WHAT IS WORDLE?

If you haven’t already given it a go, chances are you’ve heard someone mention Wordle, the online word game that’s quickly become a global sensation. But if not, don’t worry, we’re here to help you fill in the blanks!

So what exactly is Wordle? The viral phenomenon of 2022 to date is a fun and simple word game you can play online. Like a traditional newspaper crossword there’s only one puzzle to solve each day, so whether you get it right or wrong you’ll have to wait patiently (or impatiently, depending on how hooked you become!) for another chance. Every 24 hours there will be a new, randomly selected five-letter word of the day to work out, which you need to do in six attempts. After each attempt, coloured tiles change to reveal how close you were to guessing the right word.

It’s not complicated, but it can be rather compelling. Wordle also appeals because everyone in the world, and therefore everyone you know, is playing the exact same puzzle. You can also share your Wordle journey and results with other people (but not the actual answers of course). This adds an extra layer of engagement and enjoyment to the whole game.

MORE PUZZLE APPS TO TRY

There are literally hundreds of game and puzzle apps available to download for your iPhone or Android via the App Store or Google Play respectively. To save you the trouble of trying them all, we’ve hand-picked a few favourites among older players in particular.  

If you’re into word-finding games, Spelling Bee and Letter Boxed – both big names in the New York Times Games along with Wordle – are easy to learn yet difficult to master. Spelling Bee is all about making as many words as you can with seven letters, while Letter Boxed asks you to connect the letters around a square to make words and solve the puzzle.

Moving away from words altogether, check out Vertex – an interactive version of a tangram (Chinese geometric puzzle) where you connect the dots and reveal the hidden picture – or Tiles, an artistically designed, high-level take on Mahjong solitaire, a classic tile game, where you match elements to keep the chain going. And then there’s the well-established Tangle Maser 3D, a rope-sorting mind puzzle game where your goal is to untangle all of the ropes into the correct position to complete each level.

Fancy yourself as a solver of all sorts of riddles? You might enjoy Brain Test: Tricky Puzzles, which is filled with hundreds of different puzzles across many brain-teasing levels to test your skills and get you thinking creatively.