Semantle

What is Semantle?

Semantle is a daily puzzle game where players try to find the secret word based on semantic similarity to their guesses.

Players can guess any word in the dictionary. Each guess returns a semantic similarity score that the player can use to hone in on the secret word.

Thoughts on gameplay

The core gameplay mechanic – semantic proximity scoring – is an amazing premise for a game.

Like Redactle, gameplay starts in a very open-ended way as players probe around for a topic area and try to place the word grammatically.

As the game progresses, guesses get extremely targeted and players' vocabularies start to get tested.

Semantle is hard, but that's part of its appeal. There is a hint function, but this author never uses it; I'll sooner accept a lower "golf" score by throwing out more haphazard guesses.

What makes it good

Semantle is a favorite of mine. It's fun solo, but really shines in as a cooperative experience with friends. And it does support multiplayer, which is a great (if at times finicky) feature.

Like many other games I've recommended, it is simple on its surface but deceptively deep. Being good at Semantle requires good judgment and game sense, a strong vocabulary, disciplined and intentional guesses, and skillful pattern recognition.

In my experience, many games of Semantle lead into philosophical side conversations about semantic similarity, how LLMs work, and similar. I consider this game to be a beautiful piece of art in addition to a fun gameplay experience.

John