A new word game called Ribbit is being hailed as the next Wordle – a daily puzzle that delivers the same rush of competence and satisfaction that made the original a global phenomenon. The game is the latest offering on Puzzmo, an online puzzle platform that has been quietly building a cult following since its launch in October 2023.
The Puzzmo platform
Puzzmo was created by award-winning game designers Zach Gage and Orta Therox and was acquired by Hearst Newspapers in December 2023. In Canada, Postmedia became the exclusive distributor in April 2024. The platform offers a suite of daily games that go well beyond traditional crosswords. Its library includes classics such as SpellTower, Typeshift and Really Bad Chess, alongside original titles that have drawn comparisons to Wordle for their depth and daily repeatability. One gaming critic described Puzzmo as a “daily obsession on the order of Wordle, but much deeper”.
Among Puzzmo’s current daily hits are Circuits, a game that challenges players to make connections between the beginnings and ends of phrases as fast as possible – for example, “stone cold > cold medicine > medicine cabinet” – and Bongo, which presents a set of letter tiles and asks players to arrange them for a maximum score. But it is Ribbit that has emerged as the platform’s standout attraction.
How Ribbit works
Ribbit presents players with a maze of letters connected by lines. The goal is to find hidden words within that maze. What sets it apart from similar word games such as Spelling Bee or Wordscapes is its clever visual design. The connections between letters are visible, meaning that each word found eliminates other possibilities, creating a satisfying puzzle logic. If a player finds every word that uses a particular letter, that letter transforms into a cheerful little frog. As more words are discovered, the screen gradually fills with these colourful amphibians. When all words have been found, the frogs sing in celebration.
The game always includes one especially long word. One player recounted finding “hippocampus” in under a minute, describing the feeling as comparable to the first sip of a cold pint on a sunny day. The frogs, it is said, reflect the player’s own smugness back at them – a perfect visual reward for a moment of cleverness. The experience is designed to last about ten minutes a day, offering a brief but potent sense of achievement.
Ribbit’s appeal and the screentime swap
Beyond the mechanics, Ribbit has been championed as an example of a “screentime swap” – a way of using a phone intentionally rather than falling into doomscrolling. The concept, which has gained traction in discussions about digital wellbeing, suggests that even small moments of purposeful activity can replace mindless scrolling. As Paula Ingvar, head of Candy Crush’s sibling game Soda Saga, has explained: “It doesn’t interfere or compete with something else that’s important in your life. It fits into small pockets of your day. Solving small problems is a uniquely interesting thing to human beings. It’s great to start your day by winning at something. The latest research we have on mental health is that if you achieve something small, you’re ready to tackle something bigger.”
Ribbit has already inspired calls for a sharing feature that uses frog emojis, in a nod to the green, grey and yellow cubes that made Wordle so viral on social media. For now, players can access the game for free in Canada, with a paid subscription – Puzzmo Plus, priced at $3.99 monthly or $39.99 annually – unlocking additional games, ad-free play, leaderboards and archives. A mobile app for iPhone launched in May 2025, offering a free experience in the US, Canada, Europe and the UK.
Other gaming news
In the wider gaming world, Bungie has announced that Destiny 2 will end its live-service content updates on June 9, 2026, with a final update titled “The Moment of Triumph”. Servers will remain online, but the decision follows the underperformance of the “The Final Shape” expansion and significant impairment losses at the studio, which is now shifting focus to new projects including the extraction shooter Marathon. Separately, PlayStation appears to have decided to stop releasing its flagship single-player games on PC, while Microsoft has been criticised for insisting that the company name be written in all capitals.
Nintendo has released Yoshi and the Mysterious Book for the Nintendo Switch 2. Developed by Good-Feel and built on Unreal Engine 5, the game sends Yoshi through a living nature encyclopedia, meeting creatures and solving puzzles. A free demo was made available at select retailers in the United States and Canada in May 2026. The title is estimated to offer around 15 hours of play.
Warhorse Studios, the developer behind Kingdom Come: Deliverance, has confirmed it is working on an open-world Lord of the Rings RPG set in Middle-earth. Described as a “passion project” with a budget of around $100 million, the game is likely years away from release. The studio is also developing a new Kingdom Come adventure, possibly Kingdom Come: Deliverance 3, expected in the next fiscal year.
IO Interactive’s James Bond stealth game, 007 First Light, has been released to positive reviews. The game blends Hitman-style stealth with Uncharted-like action and offers an origin story for Bond. It is available on PS5, Xbox Series X/S and PC.
In a disturbing incident, an 81-year-old grandmother known as “GrammaCrackers” was swatted while livestreaming Minecraft to raise funds for her grandson’s cancer treatment. The false emergency report drew police to her home on May 18, 2026. The incident has actually boosted her fundraising efforts, which have now surpassed $100,000.
Meanwhile, Steam has officially introduced a “bullet heaven” tag for games such as Vampire Survivors and Ball x Pit, settling a long-running debate about what to call the genre. Elsewhere, a player reported that the new Lego Batman game contains a late-game reference to Limmy, the Scottish comedian turned Twitch streamer, whose reaction on stream made the player’s day. And Epic Games showcased a new version of Unreal Engine at the Rocket League championships, demonstrating football-playing RC cars in unprecedented visual detail.
Question Block
Reader James posed a question this week: “What game characters or worlds would you like to see appear in spin-offs away from their regular genre? I’d love to see Team Cherry have a go at a full-on Hollow Knight beat-em-up-style game. Who wouldn’t want to see how Grey Prince Zote would fare against Shakra?”
The suggestion was enthusiastically received, with one writer noting that Hyrule Warriors games already offer a similar action-focused spin-off for Zelda, and that Nightmare Kart began as a fan-made Bloodborne karting game. The writer also proposed a cosy game featuring the characters of Resident Evil – letting them relax instead of fighting zombies – inspired by the notoriously problematic Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball. Readers are invited to send their own unlikely spin-off ideas to [email protected].
