Daily Puzzles

Only one puzzle can be played per day. Everyone solves the same one. No answer is ever spoken, only green and yellow squares posted. Wordle, which Josh Wardle built for his partner, spread around the world on those three constraints alone. Trace the lineage back and you find Mastermind (1970), a board game of guessing colors and positions. Wardle simply swapped numbers and colors for words, and narrowed it to one puzzle a day -- and narrowing it down was the invention. In January 2022, the New York Times bought it for a price in the low seven figures. This game connects in a straight line to the century-old business of newspapers running crosswords.