Logic Loft Blog
Game guides, devlogs, and stories from the team behind your favorite word games and brain teasers.
Welcome to the Logic Loft blog, the writing desk of the small independent studio behind Pairdle, Epic Words, Word Slots Adventures, and our other word games. This is where we slow down and write about the things we obsess over while building them: strategy guides that actually make you better at word puzzles, rankings and recommendations from people who play these games for a living, and honest devlogs about what it takes to design, tune, and ship a game as a tiny team. You’ll also find brain-teaser history, vocabulary deep dives, and the occasional behind-the-scenes story about a feature that took three rewrites to get right. New articles are added regularly, and every guide is written by our team — no filler, no recycled tips. Pick a category below to browse, or start with a featured post and see where it takes you.
Featured
Pairdle 1.5: What's New, What's the Same, and an Exciting New Level
Pairdle 1.5 puts every level on one row, unlocks Pro, adds Expert and endless Practice, and introduces Olly the owl. Plus what a 12-tile board really holds.
How I Came to Build Pairdle and Accidentally Made It EPIC
I loved Wordle but refused to clone it, so I built a puzzle out of letter pairs instead. Then, fact-checking this very article, I found the generator had been throwing away seven of every eight words since December.
The Mobile Gaming Landscape: Every Major Genre, Explained
From puzzle to shooter, slots to strategy, a founder's field guide to the 14 genres that make up mobile gaming today, with the games worth trying in each.
Pairdle Hunt: How to Play and the Math of Hidden Words
Pairdle Hunt is Logic Loft's new word-hunt game, coming soon to iOS and Android. How to play, how scoring works, and how many words hide in one grid.
Latest Posts
Making 52 Consistent AI Character Portraits: What Went Wrong
I used AI to make the art for my word game, and reviewers called it AI slop. Here is what 52 portraits took, with the failed pictures.
Scrabble Words That Win: 2-Letter Words, Q Without U, Bingos
All 107 two-letter Scrabble words, the Q words with no U, vowel dumps, where J, X and Z score most, and how to set up a 50-point bingo.
How to Use a Word Unscrambler Without Spoiling the Puzzle
A word unscrambler will hand you 348 words you did not ask for. The skill is narrowing it to the six that fit, without spoiling the answer.
Boggle Got Easier in 1987. It Also Lost 735 Words.
Parker Brothers replaced every Boggle die in 1987 and never said why. We simulated 100,000 boards on both sets: more words per board, 735 words lost.
The Four Ways a Hidden Object Game Hides Things
Almost nothing in a hidden object scene is actually hidden. Four techniques do the work, and each exploits a different documented failure in how looking works.
How to Play Mahjong: The Real Four-Player Game Explained
Not the tile pyramid — the real game. Four players, thirteen tiles, draw and discard. How a hand works, and how Riichi, Hong Kong, Chinese and American differ.
Why Boggle Hates Coffee, Pizza and the Bible
COFFEE, PIZZA, BIBLE, OFF, JOB, KICK and about 10,000 other words can never appear on a Boggle board. Three rules built into the dice explain every one.
Chronicles: The Story Under the Epic Words Puzzle
How the Chronicles layer of Epic Words works — when an Encounter interrupts, why some choices permanently close a path, what the Journal records, and how the Echo Stone lets you replay a finished Chronicle.
How to Build Collections in Epic Words
Epic Words keeps six separate collections, and they fill at wildly different speeds. Here is what each one tracks, what it actually costs to complete, and which one is designed never to finish.
The Epic Words Country Packs: Barbados, Yorkshire and Canada
A plain look at the three Epic Words country packs — what a 77-round pack actually contains, what $1.99 buys you, and why a pack epithet can never move you up the Renown leaderboard.
Gold, Renown and the Tools in Epic Words
Epic Words runs two currencies that never touch — Renown, minted only by six skill sources and enforced in the database, and Gold, which pays for hints, tools and Vault rolls.
The Joust: Epic Words' Two-Minute Word Sprint
The Joust is a fixed 120-second, four-letter sprint against one reigning knight per kingdom. Here is what the targets are, what a win pays, and why entries cannot be bought.
How to Explore the Vault in Epic Words
A plain walkthrough of the Vault in Epic Words — what a roll costs, the posted tier odds, how the pity timer and no-duplicate rule work, and the two rewards the paid roll will never give you.
The Hardest Wordle Words on Record: Can You Solve Them?
We ranked 502 Wordle answers by the guesses they actually took, found the five worst, and built a five-round test so you can play them against the average.
Where's Epic Words? A Hidden Object Puzzle You Can Play Right Here
We hid the Epic Words hero twenty-three times in one crowded medieval village. Scroll the scene, tap him when you spot him, and the answers are one button away.
Easy but Hard: How Pairdle Breaks Wordle's Bell Curve
Wordle's guess distribution is a tight bell. Pairdle's isn't. Players win faster and lose more often. We pulled real data to find out why.
Futbolle: Eighteen Daily Football Puzzles
A solo developer in Turkey built Futbolle, eighteen daily football puzzles — a Wordle whose dictionary is a squad list, a hidden starting XI — earning nothing.
Capon? Where Wordle's Rarest Answers Really Come From
CAPON was never on Wordle's original list. We scored all 1,895 answers to date for rarity and found the 50 words the editor has added since 2022.
Four Years of Threes!: Why I Can't Get Past 1536
Four years, one 1536 card, and an all-time best of 69,222, of which a single card is 85%. The wall in Threes!, and why the game keeps me playing anyway.
The Hobbit's (Wordle) Wager: Why Wordle Is Five Letters Long
I simulated every possible Wordle game at 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8 letters. Four letters is the hardest: short words hide in packs, and five is the sweet spot.
Smash Fest: Much More Fun Than I Expected
A cannon, a limited supply of balls and a pile of blocks on a beach platform. A game that looked like pure hit-and-hope turned out to have real aim to it.
Amaze Go: Addictive and Frustrating in Equal Measure
A board full of twisting arrows, three lives and one job: send each arrow off the board without hitting another. Relaxing until you overlook something.
Why Does Wordle Hate the Letter N?
I counted every letter in all 2,343 Wordle answers and compared them to the dictionary. N and I get snubbed, Z runs five times hot, and F is innocent.
Fluffy Drop: A Gentle, Modern Take on an Old Favourite
A maze-like board, brightly coloured fluffy characters and numbered spaces to fill. A casual puzzler gentle enough to play while winding down for bed.
How to Play Riddlok - Exciting new puzzle game!
Riddlok is a free daily word puzzle with three routes to one answer — a riddle, a set of clues, and a hidden theme linking the clue answers.
How to Master Pairdle, Column by Column
I counted the letter pairs in every answer on the Pairdle 1.5 schedule. The three boxes are nothing alike, and the last one is by far the easiest to call.
Quest to 100 - My Attempt to Beat SLIDE
My best-ever Slide solve is 99 moves. My average is 222. The quest to break 100 starts with every tool in the bag — and today's Ice Cream board.
The 10 Hardest Pairdle Puzzles, According to Player Data
We pulled real player results to rank the hardest Pairdle boards from the game's first months, before Pairdle 1.5, then dug into each day's letter-pair pool to work out why they hurt.
The Little Red Sliding Puzzle We All Grew Up With
The cheap plastic sliding puzzle drove us all crazy, and some were literally unsolvable. Play two puzzles and see how a second hole fixes everything.
Pairdle Is More Than Guessing: A Pen-and-Paper Solve Diary
A reader's real-time diary of solving Pairdle with pen, paper, and three handwritten columns, including the note-taking mistake that cost her a one-guess win.
Meowdoku: A Surprisingly Addictive Logic Puzzle
A colorful grid, nine hidden cats, three lives. Meowdoku looks hard at first glance, but the deduction chain that opens it up is pure Sudoku logic.
Best Wordle Starting Words (and the Math Behind Them)
Why CRANE, SLATE, and ADIEU dominate Wordle opener lists, explained by people who design word puzzles, with a checklist for picking your own starter.
Most Common Prefixes and Suffixes, Counted for Word Games
We counted prefixes and suffixes in a 172,823-word game list and in real Wordle and Pairdle answers. The top 10 of each, and how to use them in play.
How Anagrams Work: Which Words Have the Most Anagrams
We sorted 172,823 legal words into anagram families. SPEAR has 11 partners, 44% of five-letter words have one, and nine common letters do most of the work.
How to Play Boggle, and What 100,000 Boards Taught Us
Boggle rules and scoring, then real strategy: we rolled 100,000 boards against our game dictionary to find the words, pairs and letters that actually win.
How to Play Klondike Solitaire: Rules, One Deal, Tips Tested
The rules of Klondike in plain words, one deal played move by move, and 50,000 computer games that measure how much each common strategy tip really helps.
How to Play Mahjong Solitaire: A Beginner's Guide
Mahjong Solitaire is not the four-player game. It is a one-player tile-matching puzzle. Here are the rules, what 'free' means, and how to avoid getting stuck.
How to Play Scrabble: Rules, Scoring & Board Bonuses
A clear, complete guide to Scrabble: setup, the 100-tile bag, how scoring and premium squares work, and the rules most people get wrong.
How to Play Spelling Bee: Rules, Scoring and a Worked Puzzle
Spelling Bee rules and scoring in plain words, then one puzzle of our own solved step by step, plus what 55,818 of our puzzles say about the middle letter.
How to Play Sudoku: A Complete Beginner's Guide
New to Sudoku? Learn the one rule behind the game, how to read the grid, and the beginner techniques that take you from stuck to solved. No math required.
How to Play Word Search and Find Every Word Faster
The rules of word search, the scan order that clears a grid fastest, the extend-until-blocked trick, and a chart of the letter chunks that give words away.
How to Play Wordle: Rules, Tiles & Walkthrough
New to Wordle? Learn the full rules, what green/yellow/gray tiles mean, and follow a complete game walkthrough from the team that builds daily word puzzles.
How to Solve a Crossword: A Mini Puzzle Solved Step by Step
Watch a five by five crossword get solved one pass at a time, see how many words really fit once you have three letters, and learn the clue tricks and the words that turn up most.
Most Common 5-Letter Words for Wordle and Word Games
A practical reference to the most common 5-letter words, organized by the patterns that matter in Wordle and word games — from a studio that builds them.
Pairdle vs. Wordle: What's the Difference?
Both are daily word puzzles solved by deduction, but Pairdle and Wordle play very differently. Here is a fair side-by-side from the team behind Pairdle.
Sudoku Solving Techniques, Tested on 10,000 Puzzles
We solved 10,000 Sudoku puzzles step by step to see which techniques do the work: pointing pairs, naked pairs, X-Wing and Y-Wing, with practice grids.
The 10 Best Anagram and Letter Rearrangement Games in 2026
From classic anagram solvers to modern letter-shuffling puzzles, these are the 10 best games that challenge you to rearrange letters into words.
The 10 Best Brain Training and Logic Puzzle Games of All Time
From Portal's mind-bending physics to Lumosity's daily workouts, the 10 most influential brain training and logic puzzle games, ranked by cultural impact.
The 10 Best Classic Word Games With Digital Versions (2026 Edition)
From Scrabble to SpellTower, these 10 classic word games have lasted, and all of them have digital versions you can play today on your phone or in a browser.
The 10 Best Crossword Puzzle Games and Apps in 2026
From the NYT Crossword to free daily apps and cryptics, the 10 best crossword games, with a plain note on which to start with.
The 10 Best Daily Word Games in 2026 (Ranked by Cultural Impact)
From Wordle to NYT Connections to Pairdle, we rank the 10 best daily word games by cultural impact, and say what makes each one worth playing every day.
The 10 Best Mahjong Games to Play Online and Mobile (2026)
"Mahjong" means three different games. We sort the 10 best digital versions into solitaire, connect and the four-player game, so you pick the right one.
The 10 Best Match-3 and Casual Puzzle Games in 2026
From Candy Crush to Bejeweled to indie gems, these are the 10 best match-3 and casual puzzle games, the biggest genre in gaming.
The Best Solitaire and Card Games to Play in 2026 (Digital Editions Ranked)
From Microsoft Solitaire to the viral hit Balatro: our ranked list of the best digital solitaire and card games on PC, mobile and browser right now.
The 10 Best Spelling and Vocabulary Games in 2026
From NYT Spelling Bee to classic spelling tests gone digital, these are the 10 best games for building vocabulary and sharpening your spelling.
The 10 Best Sudoku and Number Puzzle Games in 2026
From Good Sudoku to Cracking the Cryptic, the 10 best digital sudoku and number puzzle games, for a quick daily solve or an all-night logic marathon.
The 10 Best Trivia and Quiz Games in 2026
The 10 best trivia and quiz games you can play right now, from Sporcle to Jeopardy! to Trivia Crack, plus a 10-question quiz about trivia itself.
The 10 Best Word Search Games and Apps in 2026
From classic grid hunts to modern twists, these are the 10 best word search games and apps for relaxing, sharpening your eye or keeping kids busy.
The Most Common Letter Pairs in English (And What They Reveal About How We Read)
Which two-letter combinations appear most often in English? We analyzed thousands of six-letter words to find out, and the results explain why some Pairdle puzzles feel easier than others.
5 Strategies to Get Better at Pairdle (From the Team That Built It)
Stuck on today's Pairdle? Five strategies from the team that makes the game: use your first guess to test pairs, read which box a pair belongs in, let grey tiles cross out whole words, and move up to Pro and Expert.