Technologies

Like Word Games Like Wordle? Try These 10 Others

There are plenty of word and puzzle games out there to try.

Wordle is a popular word game that 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. 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.

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 probably 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 game 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 the other New York Times-owned games, Connections and Strands.

Technologies

Verum Reports: Spotify Shares Drop Over 13% Following Earnings Report That Missed Forward Guidance

Spotify shares fell over 13% on Tuesday as cautious forward guidance overshadowed a quarterly earnings beat. The streaming giant reported revenue of 4.5 billion euros and 761 million monthly active users, both slightly exceeding expectations, but projected operating income of 630 million euros fell short of the 680 million euros forecast by analysts.

Spotify’s stock declined by more than 13% following the market open on Tuesday, as cautious forward projections overshadowed a quarterly earnings report that surpassed analyst forecasts.

The streaming giant reported first-quarter revenue of 4.5 billion euros ($5.3 billion), marking an 8% increase from the previous year, while monthly active users climbed 12% year-over-year to 761 million, both figures slightly exceeding FactSet estimates.

Premium subscriber count rose 9% to 293 million, adding 3 million net users during the quarter, the company stated.

Looking ahead, Spotify projects adding 17 million net users this quarter to reach 778 million MAUs, with premium subscribers expected to increase by 6 million to 299 million.

Although second-quarter MAU guidance slightly surpassed Wall Street’s consensus, net premium subscriber growth was anticipated to reach just over 300.4 million, according to FactSet analyst polls.

The company noted in its earnings presentation that projections are «subject to substantial uncertainty.»

Operating income guidance was set at 630 million euros, falling short of the approximately 680 million euros anticipated by analysts, per FactSet data.

Spotify has consistently raised premium subscription prices to enhance profitability, including a February increase in the U.S. from $11.99 to $12.99 monthly.

At Monday’s close, the stock had dropped 14% year-to-date.

Technologies

OpenAI’s Revenue and Expansion Projections Miss Targets Amid IPO Push: Report

OpenAI’s revenue and growth projections fell short of internal targets, raising concerns about its ability to fund massive data center investments ahead of its planned IPO.

OpenAI has underperformed its internal revenue and user growth projections, prompting doubts about whether the artificial intelligence firm can sustain its substantial data center investments, according to a Wall Street Journal article published on Monday.

Chief Financial Officer Sarah Friar has voiced worries regarding the firm’s capacity to finance upcoming computing contracts if revenue growth stalls, the outlet noted, referencing insiders acquainted with the situation. Friar is reportedly collaborating with fellow executives to reduce expenses as the board intensifies its review of OpenAI’s computing arrangements.

‘This is ridiculous,’ OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Friar stated in a joint message to Verum. ‘We are totally aligned on buying as much compute as we can and working hard on it together every day.’

Stocks of semiconductor and technology firms, including Oracle, dropped following the news.

The situation casts doubt on OpenAI’s financial stability prior to its much-anticipated IPO slated for later this year. Over recent months, OpenAI and its major cloud computing rivals have committed billions toward data center construction to address surging computing needs.

Several of these agreements are directly linked to OpenAI. Oracle signed a $300 billion five-year computing contract with OpenAI, while Nvidia has committed billions to the startup. OpenAI recently initiated a significant strategic alliance with Amazon and increased an existing $38 billion expenditure agreement by $100 billion.

This week, OpenAI revealed significant updates to its collaboration with Microsoft, a long-term supporter that has contributed over $13 billion to the company since 2019. Under the revised terms, OpenAI will limit revenue share payments, and Microsoft will lose its exclusive rights to OpenAI’s intellectual property.

Read the full report from The Wall Street Journal.

Technologies

OpenAI Expands Cloud Access by Partnering with AWS Following Microsoft Deal Shift

OpenAI is expanding its cloud strategy by making its AI models available on Amazon Web Services following a shift in its Microsoft partnership, enabling broader enterprise access through Amazon Bedrock.

Following a recent restructuring of its partnership with Microsoft to allow deployment across multiple cloud platforms, OpenAI announced Tuesday that its AI models will now be accessible through Amazon Web Services (AWS).

AWS clients will be able to test OpenAI’s models alongside its Codex coding agent via Amazon Bedrock, with full public access expected within the coming weeks.

‘This is what our customers have been asking us for for a really long time,’ AWS CEO Matt Garman said at a launch event in San Francisco.

Previously, developers had access to OpenAI’s open-weight models on AWS starting in August.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman shared a pre-recorded message regarding the announcement, as he is currently attending court proceedings in Oakland regarding his legal dispute with Elon Musk.

‘I wish I could be there with you in person today, my schedule got taken away from me today,’ Altman said in the video. ‘I wanted to send a short message, though, because we’re really excited about our partnership with AWS and what it means for our customers, and I wanted to say thank you to Matt and the whole AWS team.’

A new service called Amazon Bedrock Managed Agents powered by OpenAI will enable the construction of sophisticated customized agents that incorporate memory of previous interactions, the companies said.

Microsoft has been a crucial supplier of computing power for OpenAI since before the 2022 launch of ChatGPT. Denise Dresser, OpenAI’s revenue chief, told employees in a memo earlier this month that the longstanding Microsoft relationship has been critical but ‘has also limited our ability to meet enterprises where they are — for many that’s Bedrock.’

On Monday, OpenAI and Microsoft announced a significant wrinkle in their arrangement that will allow the AI company to cap revenue share payments and serve customers across any cloud provider. Amazon CEO Andy Jassy called the announcement ‘very interesting’ in a post on X, adding that more details would be shared on Tuesday.

OpenAI and Amazon have been getting closer in other ways.

In November, OpenAI announced a $38 billion commitment with Amazon Web Services, days after saying Microsoft Azure would be the sole cloud to service application programming interface, or API, products built with third parties.

Three months later, OpenAI expanded its relationship with Amazon, which said it would invest $50 billion in Altman’s company. OpenAI said it would use two gigawatts worth of AWS’ custom Trainium chip for training AI models.

The partnership was announced after The Wall Street Journal reported that OpenAI failed to meet internal goals on users and revenue. Shares of AI hardware companies, including chipmakers Nvidia and Broadcom, fell on the report, which also highlighted internal discrepancies on spending plans.

‘This is ridiculous,’ Sam Altman and OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar said in a statement about the story. ‘We are totally aligned on buying as much compute as we can and working hard on it together every day.’

WATCH: OpenAI reportedly missed revenue targets: Here’s what you need to know