We have all seen or heard our parents or grandparents crunching their brains over time daily with a newspaper to solve crossword puzzles and Sudokus. Many of us had tried even when we were kids or teens, but with changing times, people have moved on from traditional newspapers to the internet to read news on the go or anywhere they want on their phone.
What did this change mean for those crossword enthusiasts and the new generation? The era of online crossword games came into play when game developer companies launched crosswords for mobile. A big name in those is Semantle, a word search game developed by David Turner and published by MPL Enterprises for smartphones.
It was huge among officegoers and teens because of how hard the game was compared to other games in its category, and the sheer joy of just getting one word right would keep the players from leaving the game in frustration and sadness. So if you want to try a few of these, here are 25 games like Semantle for you.
25 Games Like Semantle That You Can Enjoy Playing
Semantle has a great score of 4.6/5 on Google Play and a mixed bag of customer reviews, well given the game’s difficulty level, nobody’s judging. There are many games in the market, like Semantle, and some are more interesting and weird but fun to play.
Semantle’s daily users have been seen to decline as new games emerge every month in the quest to overtake the game, and keeping that in mind, let’s dive into what’s new and popular or has the potential to be one in this list. Keep in mind that I have yet to try every game on this list personally, but I checked out most of them and mentioned so.
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1. Worldle
The name can be confusing and hard to say, but the game is much harder to play. The game is created by a developer named Josh Wardle and is managed by the Ford Finder is a world map guesser which shows you a random part of the world map, and you have to guess the country/place.
Trust me; the game is challenging, even if you are a geography enthusiast. When you first take your guess, it will show you hints in directions and distance (Km) as to how far off in which direction you are from the correct answer relative to your initial response.
Many popular streamers have played this game in the past and liked it, and in our books, it’s a good time pass and something you can have fun playing with your friends because of its difficulty and randomness.
2. Quordle
Published by Chazun and initially released on android with a 4.6/5 on Google Play, Quordle is a word guesser game only four times harder! We have all played guessing games before, but this one will make your head scratch and challenge your intelligence. Quordle is a 4-word guesser game that you must discover simultaneously, and you only get nine guesses.
With each correct guess, your word will get highlighted in yellow, hinting to you about the right word that may sound easy, but it’s not. Getting even 2 or 3 words correct is a big deal, and guessing all four will break your mind! Don’t trust me? Try it out yourself and go nuts.
3. Crosswordle
The fun and exciting crosswords game by Joy Ark Games is a 5×5 traditional crossword game that will work your brain more than you or your elders have played in the newspaper. The game is a simple crossword game with colored tiles and letters.
But there is a catch, you won’t get any hints for the words, but you will get similar meanings or sounding words to complete the puzzle. There isn’t anything else to it except it’s a simple timepass, and you can do your puzzle and share it with your friends for them to solve, which is a nice little feature.
4. Redactle
Redactle is a fun browser game by John Turner, where players try to find words in a chosen Wikipedia page after it has been 90% obscured. Every day at 11:00 AM CDT, a new Wikipedia page is taken for the puzzle, and you may collaborate with others to guess what it will be about.
Writing a string of words will invalidate your guess; you must guess one word at a time. The game doesn’t have a multiple-player feature, nor does much to keep the player interested, but it looks and feels nice.
5. Nerdle
Are you bored of guessing just words or finding patterns? Let’s say here an equal or mathematical sign somewhere in the equations/puzzle will leave your head-scratching in a Semantle-like approach. Richard and Imogen Mann designed the game, which Marcus worked on.
The essential concept of the game, which was first inspired by the Wordle game, remains the same. You will only get six chances to pick from a pool of eight letters. This game is for you if you are strong with numbers and words.
6. World
The game is created by The Abe Train, where players receive a new mystery nation each day to guess by writing the name of a country with a remarkable 3D interactive globe on the screen. Identifying the nation with the fewest number of guesses is your objective. The map will color-code the names of various countries worldwide to indicate how near you are to the mystery nation.
The color of each erroneous estimate is displayed on the globe, along with its proximity to the Mystery Country. The closer you get to the solution, the hotter the color. It is simple to understand and play, that is, if you know your geography and come with a leaderboard and scorecard to keep track of how good you were playing with stats like streaks, average guesses, games won, etc.
7. Lewdle
Lewdle is exactly like Wordle but a “lewder” version by a team of developers (@garywhitta, @leah, @theadamvision) for fun rather than mental exercise. In the game, foul language is used or profanity. The use of profanity, vulgarity, or obscenity may offend you, in which case, this isn’t the right place for you.
The color of the tiles will change after each guess to indicate how well your guess matched the Lewdle. In no more than six turns, try to predict the Lewdle. If you wish to exert excessive mental effort, this game is not for you. The game is fun if you want to pass the time or giggle over drinks with your friends.
8. Heardle
Heardle is different from your typical guess the word game or predicts the number game. It is a game where you have to find the song’s name based on the 16-second clip you can play from Spotify.
Now, here’s the catch it only lets you play 1 second of the clip at the beginning, and it gives you six guesses to figure out the song. Every time you ask for a hint, you get to play one more second of the song, so with six tips in total and you get six seconds of the song to figure out.
9. Absurdle
This is an “absurd” version of the Semantle Game where it doesn’t want you to win but will give you the feeling it does; allow me to explain. The game will provide you with a word with no clue at all with unlimited guesses, but here’s the catch the number of letters you guess or the closer you get to the answer.
The more the chances of the actual word changing and the more absurd it will get to guess. The game is made by a writer and developer, Qntm, and is inspired by Josh Wardle’s style of development and creation of games.
10. Squardle
Squardle is one of those games that you would want to avoid for multiple reasons, and they are not good so before all that, let’s explain the game. This is a word-guessing game where you must guess multiple words arranged in a 5×5 interlocking manner.
The game is not just tricky; its UI could be more appealing, and on top of that, the game is too complex with multiple hinting systems like color hints, highlight hints, etc., which might look like a user-friendly addition but not. The is created by FUBAR Games and is not available for mobile; it’s PC only.
11. Squabble
This particular Game by Ottomated is filled with an adrenaline boost for the competitive nerds who want to battle out their intelligence with others. The game is a dull-looking browser game but comes with an exciting twist, as it lets you fight other players in real-time to guess the correct word and win.
The only problem is only a few players are playing the game, so finding a match can be bothersome and frustrating. Overall it is an interesting take on this genre, but the game needs some changes and improvements to make the gameplay much smoother.
12. Waffle
The viral and fun-to-play game Waffle was created by Jessian, an independent developer and puzzle enthusiast, in 2022. The game is a puzzle game where you have to rearrange letters jumbled in a 5×5 grid to form 3 or more words within 15 moves.
The game is top-rated, has an exciting genre twist, and is worth trying out for you. Every puzzle can be solved within ten moves stated by the developers, and the blocks are colored accordingly to help you guess the word.
13. Antiwordle
Yes! There’s always the one game that wants to get on your nerves in any way possible, and this one here manages to do that perfectly. As the name suggests, this is precisely opposite to the concept of Wordle and, by extension Semantle where you have to not guess the word as many times as possible.
Sounds easy, right? Yeah, that’s what we thought too, but it’s more complex than Semantle because every time you write a letter from the correct word, it gets greyed out and cannot be used again to write words!
14. Framed
This game caught our attention for one good reason: in this one, you have to guess the movie name from a screenshot taken from the movie within six guesses. The game reveals a new still frame from the film with every wrong guess, and it’s easy enough if you are an avid movie audience.
However, if you are not into movies/anime, you can try other versions of this game by them, which makes you guess from posters, tv series, and sports. We liked the game, and it is a definite yes on our list to check out and have fun, as each day, there is a new movie to guess from.
15. Mastermind and Jotto
Mastermind, commonly known as “Hit and Blow,” is a two-player strategy game that uses pegs of various colors. The Code maker is one player who arranges the pegs in a secret order, while the other player uses their pegs to determine the Codemaker’s pegs’ order. The Code maker informs their rival which pegs they positioned correctly and which ones they positioned incorrectly for each guess.
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16. Squirdle
This one is for you, my fellow Pokemon nerds; Squirdle is a guessing game by Fireblend where you have to guess the right Pokemon within eight guesses. The game is pretty fun for the fans; it lets you choose the range of generations from where the correct Pokemon will be taken.
And also, with every wrong guess, it gives you a vague hint in details like the “type,” “generation,” and “height” of the correct Pokemon. Overall we like it but even for a fan to correctly remember 900+ Pokemon can be challenging and if you have no idea what a Pokemon is, stay away from this game as it will not make any sense to you.
17. Hello, Wordle
This remake of the famous Game Wordle by Josh Wardle is also his creation, so why make almost the same game again? We don’t know. But we can tell you what’s not the same, and that is you are no longer stuck with one word per day.
There are unlimited words for you to guess with every successful try. You still get six attempts and color-graded tiles to help you think of the correct answer. Now, this game is free, so no one can complain, but the UI could’ve been a bit prettier or more appealing.
18. LORDLE OF THE RINGS
This is for the Lord of the Rings fans who want to flex their J.R.R. Tolkien knowledge and have never left middle-earth; yes, this is for you! The game is a basic word-guessing browser game with six guesses.
But all the words are directly taken from the LOR books, which makes it interesting that’s the unique part about this game and nothing much. There is one down point to this one; all the words have to be 5-letter words, so to put it simply, no answer will ever be “Gandalf.”
19. Dordle
If you are bored or have a 200 IQ, Dordle is made for you. This game is created by Zaratuatra and is Wordle but on steroids. Here you have seven guesses to guess two words simultaneously with no hints but color grading blocks to hint the correct letters. The game comes in two versions where one has unlimited words for you to keep playing and one that refreshes every 24 hours.
In addition to that, the game has a community comments section and links to play more games by the developer, and the game also looks nice and fresh compared to other entries in the list. We do recommend this one if you are looking for a challenge and are a “high-risk, high-reward” type of person.
20. Phoodle
It is a word-guessing game for food lovers by Julie Loria, an author and an art dealer. Except for the solutions, the game functions precisely like Wordle. If you successfully guess the word, the game doesn’t just say “well done”; it shows a fun fact regarding your guess or some information that is less known about.
Guessing a food-related phrase, such as an ingredient, an appliance, or a famous chef, will allow you to judge your level of culinary knowledge. This game has been played and promoted by celebrity chefs on social media, and we recommend it too.
21. Star Wordle
This one is for Star Wars fans and is made on the Semantle game code with a fundamental change by an independent developer/tech artist @ThatAsherGuy. You have to guess a five-letter from the star Wars world within six tries, or it’s game over for you.
There is a new word from their collection every 24 hours from their vast library, and the hint system works the same as Semantle. Overall, the game will be fun for Star Wars fans but entirely unplayable for the general public, so if you are a franchise fan, you should check this one out, as it will give you time alone and with your friends.
22. Custom Wordle
The game is created by brothers, Pulkit and Pallav, keeping friendship in mind. This is your typical Wordle game with just one fun twist. Here, you can write your 5-letter word, and the game creates a Wordle-style puzzle for you to share with your friends and see them scratch their hair off while figuring out the answer.
According to us, the game has a much-needed feature that the other games on this list should have but don’t, so this game deserves to be on the list. The game also has an incredible night mode, so take that how you will, but we like it.
23. Cloudle
Rob is the creator of the daily puzzle game Cloudle, a variation of Cogit (a game by the same dev). In this edition, you must find a city’s five-day weather prediction. Every day, a new city from a different country is added.
Here, we predict the forecast for the next five days in a random town by choosing weather symbols rather than typing words. Cities could be the same, but the weather will never be the same! You get six guesses to pick the correct weather pattern from a group of nine icons for the correct answer.
24. Word Forward
Developed by Rocketship Park, Word Forward is a wordle-based brain teaser that resembles an entire Wordle board. As in the previous games, you have to unscramble words here, but you have a few more tools, like exchanging letters and breaking tiles, to spice things up.
This one is very different as you are not bound to 5 or 6 tries with unlimited words, and this is not a browser game but is available on mobile devices and Steam for $5. The game is excellent to watch and feels nice to play, so you will have a good time with this one.
25. Spell Tower+
It is a word puzzle mobile game by Zach Gage as a sequel to another game released in 2008; this one has many features and relaxed game modes. Players must make sense of a chaotic mass of letters to decode words.
However, with each word solved, additional notes are added to the bottom of the screen as a tower; if your tower becomes too large, the game ends. There are no try limits or helpful hints to help you, but the puzzle itself is easy to decipher.
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