Wordle was and remains an internet gaming phenomenon, and there has been no shortage of developers trying to harness some of its magic over the past couple of years. Most chasing the big-money deal without delivering a compelling game. Tiled Words is no cheap copycat.

Created by husband and wife team Paul and Linda Herbert, Tiled Words has something that most of the vibe-coded Wordle wannabes do not: love and care.

Tiled Words is a combination of crosswords and Boggle, with a side helping of Tetris. All of the letters for all of the crossword clues are split into pieces, which you have to fit together to solve the puzzle.

Unlike Wordle, this game is against the clock, with the obligatory social-media sharing tools showing how quickly you solved that day’s puzzle, not how many turns you took.

Each day’s crossword has a theme and it feels like a labor of love. A recent blog post from Paul Herbert, celebrating six months since the game’s launch, described how he and his wife “brainstorm themes while walking the dog and trade clue ideas over lunch.”

“After the baby goes to sleep I turn the clues into a crossword and finish the puzzle,” said Paul.

It’s not as straightforward as simply working out the answers to the clues and fitting the shapes together. There can be multiple ways to form the correct words, and the game elegantly nudges players if they’re using the wrong combination of tiles to create the correct word. Tiles can also be rotated, so it’s not as simple as it may look at first glance.

Correctly placed tiles turn blue and bind with one another, as if held together by magnets, so that you don’t have to move multiple tiles individually if you need to move a chunk of tiles together. And the game works flawlessly on both smartphone and desktop browsers.

What Makes Tiled Words Different

There are a couple of things that set Tiled Words apart from Wordle.

Firstly, you’re not limited to one puzzle a day. The game’s archive is available to go back and play through for free, unlike Wordle, which now requires a paid-for subscription to access its archive on the New York Times website . The publishers have to get their money back somehow…

Second is the community involvement. Tiled Words encourages players to submit their own clues or entire puzzles, which Paul Herbert promises to review and turn into a puzzle for the wider community. Perhaps that will alleviate some of the pressure of having to drum up clues on the couple’s dog walks!

Herbert also plans to give as well as take. In his recent blog, he outlined plans to share his puzzle-making tools. “The tools are rough around the edges,” he admitted. “I’m cleaning these up and getting ready to share them.”

In the meantime, you’ve got an engaging, free word game to play that’s easily solvable in the time it takes to drink a morning coffee. The fastest Tiled Words puzzle I’ve managed so far is just over four minutes. You know you want to beat that time. And probably will…