LinkedIn Games alternatives: match the puzzle, or the daily habit

If you want more puzzles like LinkedIn’s Queens, start with one-star Star Battle. If you like Tango, try a binary puzzle, while checking its different rules. If what you enjoy is simply one shared puzzle a day, Waffle, 7 Little Words and Puzzle Lantern offer other mechanics with a familiar stopping point.

You do not need an alternative just to avoid creating a LinkedIn account: LinkedIn’s own help page says members and non-members can play. It says new puzzles arrive at midnight Pacific Time. Social features and the ability to play a puzzle are separate questions.

Puzzle Lantern is our own app. This guide compares published rules and formats checked on 16 October 2026, rather than claiming hands-on tests of every service.

Choose the kind of similarity you want

For Queens: select the one-star rules

Star Battle asks for stars in rows, columns and irregular regions, with no two stars touching, including diagonally. The one-star setting is the closest match to Queens’ one-piece-per-unit structure. A row with its star already placed cannot take another; all neighbouring cells around that star are excluded too.

Two-star and higher variants require more pieces per unit, changing the deductions substantially. Do not assume that a difficult multi-star daily is simply a larger Queens. The site offers browser play with ads and optional patron access. For a group, share a specific puzzle ID: clicking “new” independently can give everyone a different board.

For Tango: check the extra rules

BinaryPuzzle.com’s rules require equal numbers of zeroes and ones in each row and column, no run of three identical digits, and no identical completed rows or columns. A fragment 1,1,blank therefore forces a 0 next.

Tango uses two symbols, equal counts and the no-three rule, with equality or difference clues between some neighbouring cells. A standard binary puzzle’s row/column uniqueness rule is a different constraint. They share useful kinds of reasoning, but you should read the rules afresh instead of transferring every deduction automatically.

For clues: choose words rather than categories

Crossclimb combines clue answers with a ladder where neighbours differ by one letter. 7 Little Words keeps the written clues but supplies answer fragments to assemble. It does not ask you to order a word ladder.

Pinpoint instead asks for a category connecting clues. Sentence-clue Word Sense is not a replacement for that category mechanic: you type a missing word that fits a sentence. Our clue-game comparison shows these differences with original examples.

For the daily habit: accept a different puzzle

Daily Waffle is a browser option with a fixed swap allowance and a shared grid. Puzzle Lantern offers full 9×9 Sudoku, three sentence-clue words, highlighted-cell recall and missing cards. It does not contain Queens or Tango clones.

Puzzle Lantern has friends and global Daily leaderboards. More puzzles is available in Sudoku, Recall and Vanish; Word Sense is Daily only. The app is available on iPhone/iPad, with Android in a closed test. New installations currently get seven days of access before a subscription is required. Check the current in-app offer rather than assuming ongoing free play.

For a group, agree on a game and puzzle date before comparing results. See how to organise asynchronous daily play for built-in boards, chat sharing and separate trackers.