Daily puzzle games like Wordle — and one made of colour.

What makes a good daily puzzle

• Everybody gets the same one. That is what makes comparing results with friends mean anything.
• It takes minutes, not an evening. A daily is a habit, so it has to fit in a coffee break.
• The share does not spoil it. Wordle’s coloured squares work because they show how you did without showing the word.
• It does not nag. No energy meters, no timers, no notifications begging you back.

Word games

Wordle and its many descendants are about letters: guess a word, get feedback, narrow it down. Grouping games like Connections ask you to sort sixteen words into four sets. Both are about vocabulary and elimination.

Geography and trivia games

Map-shape and flag games ask you to recognise a place from an outline. Trivia dailies ask a handful of questions with a fixed answer. They reward what you already know.

Huezle: a daily puzzle you read

Huezle is closer to the second group, with one difference: you do not need to have memorised the answer. Every puzzle is a strip of colour made from real data — this one is a US presidential election, one band per state from west to east, red to blue by margin:

A real US presidential election, one band per state.

You do not need to know the result of every election to get that one. You need to know that a strip almost entirely red is a landslide, and which landslides there have been. That is the whole idea: reason from the shape.

• One daily puzzle, the same for everybody, free forever
• Seventeen categories to play beyond the daily — sports, TV, films, books, music, weather, elections and more
• A share picture that shows how you did and never the answer
• No ads, no account, no timer, and it works offline

Read more about the daily, or get the app and play today’s.