Summary
- The author is an avid puzzle game player, including Wordle and Sudoku, and has recently gotten into other puzzle games like Nerdle, Framed, and Connections.
- The author is excited about Puzzmo, a new puzzle game in beta that combines newspaper puzzles with original ones, but is frustrated because the full game can only be unlocked by being one of the first 500 people to finish the puzzle on the homepage when it's released.
- Puzzmo is seen as a fresh alternative to the dominant New York Times crossword puzzles, providing a guilt-free way to enjoy puzzles without supporting a corporation and with original game designs from the creators. The author is eagerly trying to obtain a key to play the game.
I play Wordle every day. Yes, in 2023. A few months ago, one of my friends started playing Wordle again and sending their results to our group chat, and one by one we all join𒐪ed in. We mostly play it at midnight on the dot – my partner broke his streak with a loss last night and said, with genuine sadness in his voice, “What a way to start the night.” In truth, I’ve always loved puzzle games. I used to play crosswords in university lectures, and Tetris in math class. I still play Sudoku for at least an hour every day while listening to podcasts, to unwind from a long day of typing away at my keyboard.
Since I got back on my Wordle kick, I’ve started sniffing out other puzzle games too. I play Nerdle, Framed, Connections – I’m on a full puzzle bender, and I’ll try any habit-forming brain teaser once. When Twitter started buzzing about Puzzmo, I thought, well, there’s a new game to get all my friends hooked on so we can all hyperfixate on it together. Puzzmo is a combination of newspaper puzzles like crosswords, as well as original puzzles designed by the team behind the website, combining the nostalgia of doing the crossword in the newspaper with the capabilities of a digital platform and a myriad of fresh 🌄games. Clicking over to the homepage, though, led me to a horrible realisation: it’s in beta. If you want to unlock the full game, complete with a full page of puzzles instead of just one, you have to be one of the first 500 people to finish the puzzle on the homepage when it’s released to win a key. I live in a different timezone, so I’m unlikely to ever be awake when the newest puzzle drops.
Every damn email I've gotten about keys dropping has been at 1am. I'm an adult with a job and back pain, Zach.
This is particularly tragic because I’m a fan of the work of Puzzmo creator, Zach Gage. In fact, the very app I play Sudoku on daily, Good Sudoku, is a beautifully designed, ad-free game that comes free if you have Apple Arcade and is made by Zach Gage and designer Jack Schlesinger. He’s perhaps better known for other games like SpellToweಞr and Really Bad Chess, which have been played by millions of people and are included in Puzzmo alongside crosswords and brand-new puzzles. But to me, he’ll always be the guy who made my favourite Sudoku app.
Interestingly, Puzzmo doesn’t seem to just be hopping on the trend of newspaper puzzlers going digital, but it’s a project in collaboration with the Hearst group of newspapers that directly challenges the New York Times’ dominance in the casual puzzle game arena. If you’ve been feeling guilty about giving 🎶the New York Times extra traffic – I have, especially since they’ve been criticised for transphobic news coverage and their own staffers walked out of the job in December 2022 over labour disputes – Puzzmo is, for now, a fresh way to get your puzzle fix in without having to feel shitty about being hooked on a silly little word game.
I’d also definitely feel better knowing my web traffic is going to game designers who have designed and included their own original puzzle games on this platform, instead of a corporation that buys games from independent game designers (Wordle) or rips the concept from other platforms (Connections). And I will be giving them plenty of traffic, because I&r🐎squo;ll be refreshing the page every day in an attempt to get one of those damn keys. It’ll probably be pretty tough, considering they hit the 500-person limit in under an hour on the game’s first🔯 day, and buzz has only intensified. Fingers crossed.