Connections
nytimes.com
Sixteen words, four secret groups, four mistakes allowed
Mind Benders
The sudoku app built for puzzles with unusual rules
sudokupad.app
Coffee break · Works anywhere
Free, no sign-up · online since 2020
Sven Neumann's solver is the tool the Cracking the Cryptic community uses, handling variant sudoku where the constraints are thermometers, killer cages, arrows or renban lines rather than plain boxes. Pencil marks, cell colouring and shareable puzzle links are all built in.
Variant sudoku turns the puzzle into a fresh logic system every time, and this is the interface that makes those exotic rulesets actually playable.
Keep going
Picked for a shared category and overlapping vibe, not for popularity.
nytimes.com
Sixteen words, four secret groups, four mistakes allowed
flexboxfroggy.com
Learn CSS flexbox by getting frogs onto lily pads
puzzle-nonograms.com
Numbers along the edges, a picture hiding in the grid
puzzmo.com
A daily puzzle page designed by people who love puzzles
regexcrossword.com
Crosswords where every clue is a regular expression
semantle.com
Guess the word by meaning, not by letters