On my smartphone I have several shortcuts (browser ➡️ "Add to Home Screen" or "Install and create shortcut") to puzzles.
Puzzles mentioned in this article:
| Puzzle | Type | Reset time (UTC) |
|---|---|---|
| Clues by Sam | Logic | 04:00 |
| Crossonym | Words | 04:00 |
| The Daily Spell | Words | 04:00 |
| Crux | Trivia | 22:00 |
| Precies Vier | Logic | 22:00 |
| Koprol | Words | 22:00 |
| Cijferblok | Numbers | 22:00 |
| Cinco | Numbers | 22:00 |
| Sudoku | Numbers | 22:00 |
| Connections | Logic | 04:00 |
| Wordle | Words | 04:00 |
| Acrostic | Words | 04:00 |
| Bracket City | Trivia | 04:00 |
| Puzzmo | Trivia | 05:00 |
| Zanagrams | Words | 23:00 |
| Reunion | Words | 04:00 |
| Briljant | Logic | 22:00 |
| Sunflowers | Logic | 23:00 |
| Definitions | Words | 23:00 |
First I open Clues by Sam. The goal is to mark all the people in the grid as Innocent or Guilty based on progressively revealed clues. The reason I play it first is not because it's my favourite (although I quite like it), but because it's the only one that can make me ragequit and I want to get that over with. I'll try to flag two people as Green and Red and butterfinger my way into pressing one of the Innocent or Guilty buttons. Or I'll discover someone is Guilty, go and mark them as such, and hit Innocent instead. When that happens, I usually just quit, because I won't get the satisfaction of seeing the perfect results grid of green squares. I then move on to number two in my routine.
That's Crossonym. This one's very quick. You just find synonyms through guessing letters. It has a Standard and Hard version each day. The Hard one is always significantly easier than the Standard version, because the words are longer and usually feature each vowel. Update 30 September 2026: This is no longer true! The Hard ones are now actually hard. Fewer common letters. This makes them more interesting to solve, although you're still rewarded for speed, which will make it worth YOLO-ing guesses until you fail one or two.
Then I like to do The Daily Spell. This is my favourite. You guess words to complete a short text fragment, using all the letters from that fragment. In the current run, the solution reveals a daily portion of The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde. The previous run, which is also still playable, revealed a daily portion of original fiction about a magical city.
Next it's time for some Dutch puzzles. I'll head to NRC puzzels for some Crux, some Precies Vier, and the Koprol. If I'm stuck in a waiting room, I'll also do Cijferblok, Cinco, and Sudoku. The other games interest me less, but that might be different for you. Update 26 September 2026: There's now also Briljant, a logic puzzle placing diamonds on a grid.
After Precies Vier, which is about finding groups of words that fit together, I'll do the English version, Connections from the NY Times games. They have other games too, including Wordle, but I've had my fill of Wordle-type games.
Then I like to do Sporcle's Acrostic. You reveal a piece of trivia through a mix of guessing the words in it and solving synonyms. This is a great one, but there are limited free plays.
Bracket City, from The Atlantic, is also in the rotation. It's a fun and unique concept where you solve nested clues to "collapse" them into, eventually, a historic event. This one is aggressively American though. Some of the clues require you to be carrying a lot of American cultural baggage.
Next up it's Puzzmo. Each day you can play a Cross|word (plus a big one every two weeks), a Mini Cross|word, and a Circuits for free. Well, more than that, but these are the ones I enjoy.
Another fun daily puzzle is Zanagrams. You form all the words you can from a grid of letters, with letters disappearing when there are no more words to be made with them. Update 2 October 2026: This has become my new favourite. There's a regular one and a Master one every day. I feel like I need more each day, since I've already completed the entire Archive. That also goes for some of the other PZLgames puzzles. I like Sunflowers (regular and Master), an elegant kind of Minesweeper-like logic puzzle, and Definitions, exchanging words until you've formed three complete word definitions.
Finally we have Merriam-Webster's Reunion, in which you switch letters to guess words and bring the hedgehog and fox together. There's a Classic and Extreme version each day.
If you'd like to try them out, enjoy!