Technologies
Here Are 10 Wordle-like Games You Should Try Next
From spin-offs to other word puzzles, there’s a game here for everyone.

Josh Wardle launched the simple yet enthralling puzzle game Wordle more than four years ago in 2021. Since then, the game has grown into one of the biggest word games in recent memory. Wardle initially created the game for his partner before releasing it to the public, and then The New York Times bought it in 2022. CNET’s Gael Cooper has loads of tips and tricks to tackle each Wordle puzzle, but if you’ve completed today’s game — or just love puzzle games — these alternatives are well worth your time.
Wordle asks players to figure out a five-letter word in six or fewer guesses (we have a two-step strategy to help you solve the puzzle every time). After each guess, the game shows gray blocks for the wrong letters, yellow blocks for the right letters in the wrong spot and green blocks for the right letters in the correct spot. It’s addictive, but after you solve the daily puzzle or use up all your guesses, you have to wait until the next day to play again.
You’ve likely already learned some tips, tricks and lessons from the popular word game, so why not apply your newly honed problem-solving skills to other puzzles, too? After all, Wordle isn’t the only game in town. Here are 10 other puzzle games like Wordle you’ll likely enjoy.
Connections
Another New York Times-owned puzzle, Connections is a tricky word game. «Players must select four groups of four words without making more than four mistakes,» the New York Times wrote on X, formerly Twitter. There are also four color-coded difficulty levels for each game; yellow is the easiest, then green, the blue and finally purple. The game is also similar to the BBC quiz show Only Connect, and the show’s host took to X to point out the connection. See what I did there?
You can play Connections on any web browser, but you need a New York Times subscription (which starts at $1 a week) to play.
Strands
Strands is another New York Times-owned puzzle, but this game resembles a word search more so than Wordle and Connections. This game presents a theme every day to help you find words in a grid. In Strands words can appear forwards, backward, top-to-bottom or any number of ways in a traditional word search, and words can also form in the shape of an «L» or have a zigzag in them. When you find a word, tap the first letter and drag your finger to the other letters. Every letter in the puzzle is used, so if you still have letters that aren’t connected to words, you aren’t finished yet.
You can play Strands on any web browser, but you need a New York Times subscription (again, $1 a week) to play.
Quartiles
Quartiles is a new word game Apple News Plus subscribers can access on their iPhone or iPad that’s running iOS 17.5 or later. In this word game, you’re given 20 tiles with letters on them, and you’re trying to put them together to form different words. The longest words are four-tiles long, and these are called Quartiles. The game can be tough, but finding just one of the Quartiles is as satisfying as remembering something that was just on the tip of your tongue.
You can play Quartiles on an iPhone or iPad, but you need an Apple News subscription (which starts at $13 a month) to play.
Multiple Wordle spinoffs: Dordle, Quordle, Octordle and Sedecordle
Are you up for a challenge? If you love Wordle and want puzzle games that take more brain power, you’ll want to check out either Dordle, Quordle, Octordle or Sedecordle. Each of these word games resembles Wordle, but they add more rows, columns and words to solve. Each game requires you to simultaneously solve a different number of words at once: Dordle has you solving two words, Quordle four at once, Octordle eight at once, and Sedecordle a whopping 16. Good luck.
You can play Dordle, Quordle, Octordle or Sedecordle on any web browser.
Lewdle
«Lewdle is a game about rude words,» this game’s content advisory reads. «If you’re likely to be offended by the use of profanity, vulgarity or obscenity, it likely isn’t for you.» Translation: It’s Wordle, but with bad words. The words range from mild — like poopy — to words that would make a sailor blush. Thankfully, despite this game’s content warning, slurs are not included. Like Wordle, gray, yellow and green blocks are used in the same way and there’s only one puzzle per day. So go forth and let the bad words flow!
You can play Lewdle on any web browser. You can also download this title from Apple’s App Store or the Google Play store.
Antiwordle
Tired of seeing those grey, yellow and green blocks plastered all over your social media feed? Give Antiwordle a try. While Wordle wants you to guess a word in as few tries as possible, Antiwordle wants you to avoid the word by guessing as many times as possible. When you guess, letters will turn gray, yellow or red. Gray means the letter isn’t in the word and can’t be used again, yellow means the letter is in the word and must be included in each subsequent guess and red means the letter is in the exact position within the word and is locked in place. If you can use every letter on the keyboard without getting the word correct, you win. Honestly, I’ve found this version of Wordle to be much harder than the original.
You can play Antiwordle on any web browser.
Absurdle
Absurdle bills itself as the «adversarial version» of Wordle. While Wordle nudges you in the right direction with each guess, Absurdle is trying to avoid giving you the correct answer. According to the game’s website, «With each guess, Absurdle reveals as little information as possible, changing the secret word if need be.» Absurdle doesn’t pick a word at the beginning of the game for the player to guess. Instead, it uses the player’s guesses to narrow its list of words down in an effort to make the game go as long as possible. The final word might not even include a yellow letter from one of your earlier guesses either. You can guess as many times as you want, which is helpful, and the best score you can get is four. Have fun!
You can play Absurdle on any web browser.
For more word game fun, check out CNET’s Wordle tips, the best Wordle jokes and everything you need to know about the word game. You can also cehck out what to know about Connections and Strands.
Technologies
The Aurora Borealis Might Be Visible in the Northern US Tonight
The Northern Lights come from a solar wind that erupted from the sun over the weekend.

Skygazers in the northern region of the US and Canada might catch a glimpse of the Northern Lights as soon as tonight and into tomorrow. The NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center just issued a G3 (strong) geomagnetic storm watch for April 16, when plasma ejected from the sun is expected to reach Earth’s magnetic field. Minor geomagnetic storm conditions are likely to carry on until April 17, the agency reported.
The colorful lights splashed across the night sky are caused by geomagnetic storms in our atmosphere and the SWPC pays attention to when these might occur. Geomagnetic storms in the atmosphere can arise from a cosmic phenomena called coronal mass ejections (CME). These surging ejections of solar wind come from the corona, the sun’s outermost layer. CMEs consist of plasma and magnetic field, and they can take hours or days to reach Earth.
When CMEs arrive, they cause disturbances in our atmosphere by disrupting our planet’s magnetic field. This creates geomagnetic storms. Coming sooner than expected, the first CME actually arrived earlier today, spaceweather.com reports.
As a result, a G1 (minor) geomagnetic storm is currently raging in our atmosphere. It’s still too soon to tell if this is the first of two CMEs that erupted from the sun on Sunday, or if one CME «ate» the other one to make this a cannibal combination. Forecasters say the storm is strengthening into a G3-class.
Where can you see the aurora?
Most places in the US won’t have an opportunity to see the aurora borealis, but people in US regions as far south as Iowa, Michigan, Oregon, Pennsylvania and Wyoming might get a chance to see the lights, according to Accuweather. However, clouds, rain and snow might make it hard to see.
For the best chance of seeing it, you’ll need to have an unobstructed view of the northern horizon and be using long-exposure photography to capture images of the phenomenon.
The Northern Lights have certain times of year when they’re more likely to be observed. You have the best chance of catching aurora borealis in March, April, September and October, as these are the months near the spring and autumn equinoxes, when the Earth’s position to the sun is ideal for geomagnetic storms.
«The equinoxes are the transition points between which hemisphere is tilted toward the sun,» Shannon Schmoll, director of the Abrams Planetarium, told CNET last month. «At this point, the Earth’s magnetic field is at a more favorable angle, closer to perpendicular, that allows easier interaction of the charged solar particles with the Earth’s magnetic field and atmosphere.»
April is a good month for watching the Northern Lights because we’re at Solar Maximum — the period of the highest solar activity in the 11-year solar cycle.
«During this time, we expect to see more sunspots, and therefore there’s a higher chance of high-impact space weather occurring on any given day,» Elsayed Talaat, director of the Office of Space Weather Observations at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said last October.
So, if you live in a place where the aurora borealis might be visible tonight, make sure to head away from city lights and check out the night sky to the north.
Technologies
Apple Will Reportedly Give You a Discount on Accessories if You Recycle Your Old Electronics
The Earth Day promotion could net shoppers 10% off a suite of accessories for one month.

Apple is starting an in-store electronics recycling promotion for one month that can net consumers 10% off of Apple accessories, according to a post Tuesday by Mark Gurman of Bloomberg. The maximum discount offered will be $20, and it will be applicable to AirPods, AirTags, Apple Pencils, Apple Watch bands, and MacBook cases and peripherals.
While Apple customers generally benefit from trading in used electronics for store credit, many items are ineligible for this program. Typically, a single device can be traded in for credit toward a new one, and additional iPhones, iPads, Macs, Apple Watches and other Apple devices can be exchanged for an Apple gift card. Non-Apple electronics cannot be exchanged for store credit.
The new Earth Day promotion reportedly makes all used electronics — even the otherwise uncompensated non-Apple electronics — viable to trade-in for the $20 Apple accessory discount, which would make this a great time to bring in recyclable electronics you wouldn’t otherwise be rewarded for.
Apple’s trade-in program is offered in-store and online as a clean and easy way to recycle old electronics. While Apple doesn’t give store credit for every item, the company recycles them free of charge. If Apple is offering a discount on its peripherals for trading in non-Apple electronics, it could be using this promotion to bring new customers into its product ecosystem.
Apple rarely discounts its accessories outside of Black Friday events, making this a rare opportunity to score a peripheral for less cash. It is unclear whether this is a US-based promotion or if it will run in Apple Stores internationally. Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Technologies
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