LinkedIn is usually associated with business, not leisure, but the career-focused social media site is now introducing three original online games. On May 1, LinkedIn debuted three games that can be played one time per day, in the vein of The New York Times’ popular games Wordle. Connections and others. Called Pinpoint, Crossclimb and Queens, the LinkedIn games can be played alone or against other people who are first-degree connections, meaning people who’ve mutually accepted an online friendship on the site.
“Turns out, one of the best ways to deepen and reignite relationships at work is simply by having fun together,” LinkedIn’s new Games page says. “Compete with your connections, spark conversations, and break the ice. Games forge relationships, and relationships are at the heart of everything we do.”
Games also offer a way to keep people on the site, where they might decide to pay for a subscription to LinkedIn Premium.
Could LinkedIn become a part of your new daily gameplay, or even supplant Wordle? Let’s take a look at the basics behind Pinpoint, Crossclimb and Queens.
Read more: Wordle: The best starter words, strategies, tips and tricks
Pinpoint
A word-association game, Pinpoint makes players guess what the connection is among five clue words as each one is revealed. As with Wordle, the fewer tries it takes, the higher the score. But even if it takes you four out of five guesses to get the correct answer on Pinpoint, you’ll still be told that you’re “crushing it!”
Read more: How to always win the New York Times’ Spelling Bee
Crossclimb
A word-logic game, Crossclimb is described by LinkedIn as “inspired by a mini crossword — but with a twist!” Players are shown clues to determine three word “rungs” that they then have to arrange into a ladder of words where each rung differs by one letter from the rung above or below. Once the ladder is properly constructed, top and bottom rungs are added that can be one clue that applies to different words and solves the puzzle.
Read more: Here’s the May 1 Wordle answer (spoilers, of course)
Queens
A visual-logic game with only one answer each time, Queens challenges players to fill a multicolored grid so that there’s only one queen emoji in each row, column and color, with no two queens touching.
Different creators are constructing the Queens grids. Three-time World Sudoku Champion Thomas Snyder designed all the Queens grids for the opening month of May and — spoiler! — they’re not easy.
Read more: Here’s the May 1 Connections answer (spoilers, of course)
