Games like Wordle, but with no words in them

If you like Wordle but you are done with letters, the thing you are actually after is the shape, not the vocabulary: one puzzle a day, the same one for everybody, over in a few minutes. Plenty of games have that shape and no words in them at all. Here they are, grouped by what you end up thinking about.

What “like Wordle” really means

Strip out the spelling and four properties are left. They are the whole format, and they are why the format works:

• One a day. The game ends and hands you your evening back.
• Everyone gets the same one. Talking about it is possible, because there is a single shared thing to talk about.
• Minutes, not sessions. It fits in a queue.
• A result small enough to say out loud. Four out of six. Three strikes. Seven rounds.

Nothing in that list is about language. So the honest way to answer “games like Wordle but not words” is to go looking for those four properties in other materials.

Numbers

• Nerdle is the closest transplant: a hidden equation instead of a hidden word, with the same green and yellow feedback on every character. If you want Wordle with the letters swapped out and nothing else changed, this is it.
• Mathler hands you a target number and asks which equation gets there. It plays more like a search than a deduction.
• Sumplete is a grid where you delete numbers until each row and column hits its target. No guess feedback at all, so it is a genuine logic puzzle rather than a guessing ladder.

Pure logic grids

These have neither letters nor arithmetic. You get a grid and a rule, and there is exactly one arrangement that satisfies it.

• Queens and Tango, the daily logic games on LinkedIn, are the easiest to reach because they need no new account if you already have one.
• Star Battle asks you to place stars so every row, every column and every outlined region holds exactly two, and no two stars touch. It is the deepest puzzle on this page and the one most likely to eat an hour.
• Sudoku, obviously, if the daily version is the part you were missing. It is the original one-a-day logic grid and it predates all of this by decades.

Patterns and cards

This family is the furthest from Wordle and the closest to the feeling of a quick round, because the puzzle is over in seconds and then escalates.

• Recall, in Puzzle Lantern, flashes a pattern of marked cells on a grid and then blanks it. You tap the cells you saw. The Daily is eight rounds: the grid and the pattern grow, the preview time shrinks, and three strikes ends the run.
• Vanish, also in Puzzle Lantern, shows a hand of playing cards, hides it, and brings it back with one card gone. You pick the missing card from a line-up of five. Eight rounds, the hand growing every second round, three misses and it is over.
• Daily jigsaws exist in several apps if you want the opposite of pressure.

Guess the thing

Same one-a-day loop, different material, and these are the ones people share most:

• Globle and Worldle for countries, the first by warmth, the second by distance and direction.
• Heardle for songs, from the opening second outwards.
• Framed for films, one frame at a time, and GuessThe.Game for video games from screenshots.

Which one should you actually pick

A note on what we make

Puzzle Lantern is our app, so weigh the two entries above accordingly. It is four games with one shared Daily each: Sudoku, Recall, Vanish and Word Sense. Two of those four have no words in them, which is why they are on this page. Beyond the Daily, More puzzles is unlimited in Sudoku, Recall and Vanish.

Things worth knowing before you install it: it is iOS only today, there is no archive so yesterday’s puzzle is gone, and there is no daily checklist, no combined score and nothing that asks you to play all four. Play one. That is the whole idea.

The format was never about words. It was about a thing that ends, at the same time, for everybody.

Questions people ask

What makes a game like Wordle if it has no words?

One puzzle a day, the same one for everyone, finished in a few minutes, with a result short enough to say out loud. Those four properties are the format.

What is a daily game like Wordle but with numbers?

Nerdle for a hidden equation with Wordle’s exact feedback, Mathler for a target number, Sumplete for a pure elimination grid.

Are there daily games with no letters and no numbers?

Yes. Queens and Tango are logic grids, Star Battle is a harder one, and Recall and Vanish are pattern and card games where nothing is written down at all.

Do any of these let you compare results with friends?

Most hand you an emoji grid to paste into a chat. Puzzle Lantern keeps a friends leaderboard per game instead, and both people have to accept the connection before either sees the other’s results.