(Image courtesy of scrandle.com. “In ‘Scrandle,’ players must choose which stadium food is superior, one of many strange web games.”)
Aaron Preziosi
Connector Editor
Between its simple, ad-free design and its easily shareable results, it’s no secret that “Wordle” took the internet by storm in 2021. Following its meteoric rise and subsequent acquisition by the New York Times, it only continued to grow in popularity and spawned many other daily games, such as “Connections” and “Strands.” However, it also inspired independent programmers to create their own daily web games with unique premises. One such game is “Scrandle,” a daily web game where players are presented ten pairs of stadium food,“scran,” and have to choose which they think is superior, according to community consensus.
The game features scran from all over the world and all kinds of cuisines. One matchup may be chips with curry and ice cream nachos, and another might be sausage with peas and gravy with a Yorkshire pudding on the side, against a double cheeseburger with one Kraft single on top. “Scrandle,” like “Wordle,” also allows players to easily share their results to social media, and also features two endless modes: “Practice” and “Super Scrandle,” the former allowing players to endlessly hone their skills on as many sequences of ten pairs as they wish, and the latter giving the player an endless string of pairs that require them to bet points on whichever they think is superior.
Another unique daily web game worth playing within the “-dle” genre is “Cutle,” where players are given a unique, lumpy and uneven shape every day and have to cut it in half as evenly as possible. While it diverges greatly from the standard format, it remains interesting and teases the brain much like its peers. There is also the aptly named “Angle,” where players are given a random angle every day, and must determine what it is within four guesses. They are given feedback on how close they are, and whether the actual angle is higher or lower.
Branching out, while still keeping with the daily format, there is also “Catfishing, the Wikipedia Guessing Game” where players have to guess ten “notable, diverse and interesting people, places and things” every day based on the tags of the subject’s Wikipedia article.
For example, Question 1 of the March 17, 2026 puzzle presented the tags “1995 establishments in New Brunswick, Canadian desserts, Canadian inventions, ice cream brands, McDonald’s foods, McWords and Products introduced in 1995” and the player would have to guess which Wikipedia article is being referenced: The McFlurry. This repeats for the rest of the nine questions. “Catfishing” is notable, however, for the fact that it does not allow repeat guesses. Players must guess the correct article in one attempt or the question is scored as incorrect. However, in the result of an incorrect answer that is just shy of being correct, players can mark it as “close enough” for a half point.
On the more specific side of things, there is “Costcodle.” Every day, there is a new “Costcodle,” a randomly selected item from Costco with the price omitted. Players have six attempts to guess the price of the item, with a 5% margin of error. Incorrect guesses will guide players towards the target price, using a red or yellow arrow to indicate whether or not the guess is off by more or less than 25% of the target price.
For video game enthusiasts, there is “Steamdle,” in which players are required to guess a randomly-selected Steam game based on player reviews within six guesses. With each incorrect guess, another review appears and provides increasing levels of information and context.
Like all the other entries, “Steamdle” allows easy sharing of results to social media via a copy-and-paste, utilizing emojis and puzzle numbers to indicate performance.
While not all the games listed will be everyone’s cup of tea, they each have unique perks and challenge players’ knowledge and abilities in different ways. It is worthwhile to play at least one a day and remain sharp.
