games, quizzes, and brainteasers!
puzzles marked with a
update daily, weekly, or monthly. puzzles marked with a 
have leaderboards to which you can submit your scores. let me know if you beat mine, LOL!
merriam-webster games: quordle (4 wordles at the same time), blossom (spell words using only the provided letters), and the missing letter (crossword), plus some obscure vocabulary quizzes.
encyclopedia britannica games: i mostly just play octordle (8 wordles at the same time), but they've got sudoku and trivia quizzes too. did you know britannica was merriam-webster's parent company? i didn't!
set: find six "sets" in a group of cards. this one is easy to play, but hard to explain. check out the instructional video on the site! they have two other games on there, but i just play set.
genitle: wordle, but for reproductive anatomy. less salacious, more educational. harder than i was expecting.
nyt games: i play connections and the mini crossword. occasionally i'll play letter boxed or tiles, but they're not as satisfing imo.
washington post games: there's SO many free crosswords here!! they have multiple daily and monthly options, plus a decent backlog for each. i've gotten a lot of mileage out of this one.
redactle: reveal hidden words in a wikipedia article to figure out the article's topic. this is harder than it sounds.
globle: guess the country based on how hot/cold your previous guesses were. there's also a version for capital cities.
metazooa: use taxonomic clues to guess the mystery animal. there's also a version for plants.
numble: use the numbers provided to create equations that add up to a target amount. each number can only be used once.
connections: find groups of four within a collection of seemingly random words. this one tries to trick you, so pay attention! :P i prefer the nyt's daily version, but sometimes i get the itch to play more. keep in mind that there's not that many categories, so they tend to repeat if you play too often.
semantle: try to uncover the hidden word by guessing words that are semantically similar. also has a "junior" version (though i still find it difficult!)
contexto: similar to semantle, but a bit simpler.
qwertl: like wordle, but it also tells you whether the letters you entered are adjacent to the correct letter on a qwerty keyboard. you get one less guess than usual, since you're getting more information.
puzzle team: this is actually a collection of grid-based puzzles by the same folks. they're each under a different domain name, but you can access the other puzzles at the bottom of each page, so i've just linked one. you use the same username & password on each site, but you have to manually log in to each domain separately. your profile and stats do carry over once you're logged in, though.
mahjong: a low-stakes matching game, great for when you just need something to do with your hands
absurdle: a deliberately antagonistic version of wordle. instead of picking a hidden word, absurdle takes your guesses and tries to find a word that doesn't fit. you have to sort of back it into a corner to get the final word.
unipuzzle: this site has TONS of puzzles. matchsticks, logic grids, the works. it feels like the sort of site your teacher would've had you use on special occasions in elementary school.
guess the game: guess the video game based on screenshots and hints.
guess the book: guess the book based on quotes and hints.
guess the audio: guess the song based on audio snippets and hints.
framed: guess the movie based on individual frames.
episode: guess the tv show based on individual frames.
plotwords: guess the movie based on keywords that describe its plot.
