The quickest way to play word games online is to open a free browser game site and pick from its word category, with nothing to install. Mayavoo's word games shelf is a good place to start: it holds a guessing game, a grouping puzzle and a letter-wheel crossword, and each one runs in the tab on a computer, phone or tablet.
This guide covers the main kinds of word games online, what each one asks of you, and how to choose one for the time you have.
The main kinds of word games online
Most word games fall into a few families. Knowing which one you like saves a lot of clicking.
- Guessing games. You find a hidden word from clues about each letter. Wordle made this style famous.
- Grouping puzzles. You sort a grid of words into sets that share a link, and the trick is spotting the decoys.
- Letter wheels and crosswords. You build words from a small set of letters to fill a grid.
- Word search and classic crosswords. You find or fill words from clues or a jumbled board.
Three word games on Mayavoo
Each game below is described from its own Mayavoo page, and all three list desktop, mobile and tablet as supported devices.
| Game | Family | What you do | Daily mode |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tumbler | Guessing | Crack a hidden five-letter word in six tries | Yes, plus an endless mode |
| Common Thread | Grouping | Sort sixteen tags into four hidden groups | Yes, with a streak |
| Spell Orchard | Letter wheel | Swipe letters to fill a small crossword plot | No, you play through levels |
Tumbler
Tumbler turns the five-letter guessing game into a safe-cracking job. Each guess turns a row of dials, and the marks differ in shape as well as colour, so you can read them without relying on colour. The daily vault gives everyone the same word, and a heist mode keeps going for as long as you can stay ahead of the alarm.
Common Thread
Common Thread is a grouping puzzle set on a museum curator's workbench. Some tags look like they fit two groups, and the hardest sets lean on wordplay such as hidden words and sound-alikes. You get four mistakes, and the game tells you when you are one tag away.
Spell Orchard
Spell Orchard is the calm one. You swipe, tap or type letters from a wheel to fill a crossword plot, and extra real words you find earn seeds you can spend on hints. The word list leaves out offensive words.
How to choose
Pick by how long you have and how you like to think.
- Five minutes: a daily puzzle such as Tumbler or Common Thread. You finish, keep your streak and move on.
- A longer sit: Spell Orchard, where levels follow one another and the wheel grows as you go.
- Playing with someone nearby: a grouping puzzle works well out loud, because talking through the links is half the fun.
Why play in the browser
Browser word games load like a web page, so there is no app store, no install and nothing left on your device afterwards. On Mayavoo you can play without an account; signing in with Google or GitHub only adds likes and comments. The site is free because of ads, and a short Google ad may show before a game starts or when you leave it, never while you play. Each game is played and checked by the team before it goes live, and it runs in a sandboxed frame away from your account.
If you want the original Wordle or the NYT crossword, the New York Times is still the place for those. For a free spread of word games online in one place, Mayavoo is the pick.