Puzzmo is an unmissable part of my daily routine
Possibly the game I've played most this year is Puzzmo the newish (2023) daily puzzle platform by long time indie game designers Zach Gage and Orta Therox.
Puzzmo offers a dozen or so games that update daily, stylistically similar to Wordle in that they are bite sized puzzles that aren't too demanding and can be solved in 2-10 minutes. The outlier and my favourite daily puzzle is Cross|word, a NYT style crossword puzzle (with some notable differences) that takes 5-20 minutes to solve.
I became aware of Puzzmo around it's launch but was initially put off by the monthly subscription ($6/month) but as my yearly NYT games subscription was ending and my willingness to give the NYT any money was zero since they kept and continue to publish pro genocide and anti trans opinion pieces. I decided to give it a proper shot and signed up for a trial and what I found was compelling enough that I've played daily for a full year with my Puzzmo-versary next week.
There's a ton of great games but the main game I want to highlight is Cross|word since I've scarcely missed a day in solving it and it's mini counter-part.
Cross|word with it's stylised "|" is pretty straight forward to explain, it's a crossword puzzle in the NYT crossword tradition. A tightly packed grid, with cluing conventions that are always consistent, e.g. clues that end in a "?" indicate the solution is a pun, or playful misdirect from the clue and they often feature "Crosswordese" answers, words that are very common in this style of crossword due to their usefulness in filling out a tight grid. e.g. Ode, Oreo, Ore, Den. which add to the fun of solving these puzzles as seeing the novel ways they are clued can be quite entertaining. Where it deviates from the NYT tradition is by breaking up multi word or initialised answers in the grid with a line or lines, a small quality of life change that removes some friction in the solve, but most importantly the puzzles are constructed by people who are willing to tap into pop culture and current affairs which has allowed me to purge from my memory hyper specific US geography, golf trivia and similar tidbits that cater to the NYT demographic that only served me in solving crosswords. This more modern cluing style makes the puzzles so much more engaging even if I do miss the occasional music reference but that is solved with the other Cross|word innovation, in puzzle hints which give you a more specific additional clue to help get you over the line.
All of this is tied together with a scoring system that rewards quick solves, not using clues, and "plonking" answers (filling in the answer in one go with no crosses). It plots your scores over time and gives you a leader board to see how well you placed that day amongst just your friends or across the globe.
Here's a link to today's Cross|word solve
Two daily crosswords, a beautifully designed site (or app) and a manageable daily commitment (with absolutely no penalty for missing a puzzle) has made Puzzmo an unmissable part of my daily routine. It's 100% worth checking out if you are in the mood for some daily puzzling.
If you are interested in learning how to solve this style of crossword puzzle Puzzmo actually did a series of mini puzzles in October last year that acts as a kind of tutorial. Check them out here: (https://blog.puzzmo.com/posts/2025/10/01/minis/)