Alternatives
Products that do what words.zip – Massively infinite word search does
Hi HN! This is a word search game I launched in the beginning of this year - didn't get much traction then, but it's been posted around a bit (right now getting some traffic from kottke.org) and now has over 12,000 words found! Now that it's a little more filled out I figured I'd share it again. Really enjoying seeing what everyone is making on it - it appears most people start by just adding a few words to the big clump in the middle, then adding to other people's projects (or ruining them) and finally working on their own little concepts. My favorite is the kitty to the north. Hope you…
- 1WZ
Just a fun free little pastime where you can find words on an infinite grid of random letters. I find it relaxing to play before bed! Hope you enjoy too - I cleared the board today so lots of room to grow.
Jan 2026 · words.zip
- 2WC
2013 · wordsforthat.com
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- 4SW
I just finished my first iOS game, Snack Words, which is a real-time, multi-player word finding game. iTunes link: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/snack-words/id425786167?mt=8&ls=1 YouTube video demo: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zPQuqoUHqU I wanted to build something very simple and minimal. There's no figuring out who to play, and each game is only 90 seconds long. The backend is 2,400 lines (so short!) of Erlang which speaks a custom protocol (length tagged JSON packets) to the client. The Objective-C side protocol implementation makes heavy use of blocks and works a lot like my…
2011
- 5

I've been working on a simple multiplayer word game called Alphabet Soup. It's a bit like NYT Spelling Bee, except it's multiplayer and only your best (longest) word counts toward your score. So, instead of trying to find as many words as possible, the game is more about finding one unusually good word. You can play with friends in a private match, or, you can join a public Arena match to play against other players who are online. If no one else is around, you'll be matched with a bot. The game works well with just 2 players, but, also works with bigger groups since the game isn't…
28d ago · alphabetsoup.club
- 6IB
The idea is to get from a starting word to a target word by creating a list of words to go in the middle. You can only change one letter at a time. Yesterday's words: https://twitter.com/ChangelistGame/status/1518695582151237632 Today's game: https://changelist.rocks/
2022
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- 10TA
My partner and I built a daily word game that has elements of the Mini Crossword, Wordle, and Spelling Bee, with some twists all its own. I’ve been fairly obsessed with the New York Times crossword puzzle ever since I saw the documentary Wordplay about 12 years ago. I started with Mondays and gradually made my way up to Saturdays, and when I began to appreciate the puzzles as aesthetic objects worthy of appreciation and criticism (rather than just a slog to survive and then brag about), I began to wonder what it would be like to create puzzles. But making full crossword puzzles was always…
2025 · triplit.com
- 11LC
This is a silly idea I had a couple years ago that I just recently launched. It's a slow, globally shared word "game" (or experiment?) to find the Last Word on Earth. It starts with about 174k words on a board and anyone in the world can click a word to remove it from the board. Poof, gone. Eventually, the whole world will have decided on one word that remains (other milestone numbers are tracked as well). I imagine it's going to take a while to get down to a single word, but once that happens, it will be recorded and a fresh board will repopulate to start again. And again and again. There…
Jun 2026 · lastwordonearth.com
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- 13DW
I built this daily puzzle game called "Omitten". The idea came from a compulsive habit I got from reading books on an e-reader and constantly looking up definitions (iykyk). Quite often you'd see a single word with 20 different meanings in different contexts, and I wanted to build a game around that. In the game you get a maximum of 4 clues. The first one will generally be an archaic form or an unusual context. The second and third pivot into entirely different domains to try and trick your brain, and by the fourth, it should be fairly obvious. You start with only the first clue, and as you…
May 2026 · omitten.com
- 141W
A few months ago I shared 18 Words, Zanagrams and Sunflowers here, which loads of you ended up playing and sending really useful feedback. I’ve now brought all three together into PZL games along with three new daily games. Just wanted to say thanks to everyone here who played, commented and helped improve them. HN has been a big part of getting these games off the ground. I'v now had over 1 million players across them. Would love to hear what you think of the new site, and any feedback is very welcome.
9d ago
- 15YA
Howdy HN. I wanted an excuse to do some lightweight JS/TS development and to get reacquainted with the Cloudflare stack, so I put together a daily word game. It's partially inspired by NYT's Spelling Bee and Wordle. The main goal is to find a specific word each day that uses each provided letter at least once. There's a secondary goal of finding as many words as possible. Right now progress is all stored on-device, but in the future I might add leaderboards or other competitive elements. Hope y'all enjoy!
2025 · wotd.is
- 16IM
Hi everyone, Wanted to share a game I built. It's called Unscramble! and I believe it's the simplest word building game. Rules: You get a few letters on screen. You need to make one word with all the letters. Tap a letter to select. Tap again to deselect. Faster you go, better you score. If you enter anagrams of the word it's looking for, it gives you extra points. If you are stuck, you can either "Ask Friend" or get Hint. You get extra points for getting the word fast but you don't get penalized for taking too long. I believe the simplicity of the game along with big touch buttons makes it…
3d ago
- 17IM
Hi HN! In the last couple of weeks I've been working on Cranki: Cranki = Crosswords + Anki. (It's a stupid name tbh, haha) I like doing crosswords in Spanish (to learn vocab) but none of the apps out there allowed me to use my own list of words that I come across. So I built one instead. It's entirely client-side. No server, no database, no accounts, etc. Your words and stats are stored in local storage. I built this for myself but let me know if you like it!
Apr 2026 · cranki.app
- 18IF
So, after many years of kicking about little apps and not putting the full effort in, I decided to bite the bullet and get on with it. Very much inspired by patio11 and Bingo Card Creator, I present Griddol (http://www.griddol.com) a tool to create and play word searches. Intended mainly for teachers, but encouraging those who like a word search too. This been churning around in my head for over a year in various forms, and I used the concept to help learn CoffeeScript, CouchDB and node.js, so even if the product itself is a failure, the learning process has been valuable. I'll be the first…
2011
- 19SW
2025 · spaceword.org
- 20AD
Have you ever come across a word in another language that just perfectly captures a feeling or concept you can't quite express in your own tongue? I created coolforeignwords.com because I wanted to share those "aha" moments with fellow language lovers, and created a website to make those words easier to find. So, whether you're a word nerd, a traveler, or just curious about the world, please feel free to visti my website. Try it out and please share your feedback. It's still very early stage, so would love any advice. Thank you
2023 · coolforeignwords.com
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Free daily word puzz. Challenge friends to beat your time!
Jun 2026 · categori.app
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- 23QA
Hey HN, Today I'm launching Quorbo (www.quorbo.com): a simple letter-revealing game (think Wheel of Fortune with some twists) where you get 6 turns to guess the day's quote! It's my first post-parenthood side project and first web game. Being a working dad has caused me (for the first time, believe it or not) to focus on simplicity. Up until about a year ago, endless free time secretly plagued me... because I love _building_, and more free time meant: more room to add complexity. Not anymore! Quorbo is the first of my initial batch of three simple word games, and I can't wait to make more.…
2023 · quorbo.com
- 24WA
2022 · wordbreak.io
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