We love a good gaming moment and the LinkedIn logic puzzles have got us hooked to their clean design and creativity already. Of all the social networking platforms out there, LinkedIn has always been the least enjoyable one for anyone to open up. Logging into the page and seeing everyone flaunt their achievements can be a dreadful experience for anyone who isn’t logging in to share their own, but if there’s one thing that could’ve made it better, it would be mini-games. Calling it the LinkedIn “gaming platform: might be a bit of a reach, but the three new logic puzzles that have been added are engaging enough to keep people coming back for the next few weeks.
The LinkedIn gaming feature has likely been introduced to encourage daily logins onto the platform and for us at least, it might just work splendidly.
Image: The results page when you win a round in Queens
New LinkedIn Logic Puzzles Follow the Rising Popularity of Daily Puzzles
I distinctly remember being scoffed at as a teenager, when a classmate realized I only had word games and sudoku puzzles on my phone. Thankful, in 2024, we’re moving away from shaming those who like a good brain teaser and embracing the era of daily challenges with LinkedIn’s logic puzzles being the latest entrants on the list. Josh Wardle was among the first to bring word games back to mainstream attention when he launched Wordle in October 2021. Soon over 2 million players decided to keep up with the daily puzzles within months of its launch.
The New York Times acquired Wordle in January 2022, which revived its own online gaming category quite nicely. Thankfully they left it free to play instead of tying it behind their paywall, which has allowed millions of players globally to start their day or end it with these games. All the games that NYT has launched ever since have been a massive hit, following the blueprint of engaging word games that put your brain to work. Their most recent game Strands is a lot of fun, but nowhere nearly as frustrating as Connection can be every other day.
The three new LinkedIn puzzle games are unique and don’t imitate Wordle or its siblings directly, but instead bring a new way to think and reason. LinkedIn isn’t the first to add games to attract an audience and it won’t be the last either. Netflix and Crunchyroll are two video viewing platforms that added access to their gaming vaults as an additional attraction to paying the subscription fee. Similarly, magazine publisher Hearst acquired a puzzle gaming platform to pull readers towards their page. We might have moved away from the bygone eras of Facebook games but we didn’t move too far away.
Exploring the New LinkedIn Gaming Feature
The LinkedIn gaming platform was launched with three new games and according to the post by LinkedIn News editor Ruiqi Chen, the games aim to “spark conversations and friendly competition among professionals around the world.” The post goes on to explain that since the first “word-cross” puzzle was introduced 111 years ago, word games have seen a projected annual growth rate of 8.61 percent. That’s a LinkedIn-appropriate way to introduce games if anything, but the post is correct in stating that word games have managed to capture the attention of people globally.
These games are accessible through the “My Network” tab on mobile and desktop. You can also find them through the LinkedIn News page, or go directly to linkedin.com/games as well. The three LinkedIn puzzle games released on May 1, 2024 include:
- Pinpoint, a word association game to guess the category
- Queens, a logic puzzle to ensure there is only one queen in each line and in each colored region
- Crossclimb, a word trivia game with a little bit of organization mixed in
How to Play Pinpoint
The first of the LinkedIn gaming platform’s offerings is Pinpoints, a category guessing game. Here, you have 5 guesses to determine the category of words for the day, but the catch is that you only start with one clue. When you launch the game, you are shown a single word on your screen and you have a box at the bottom to make a guess about what category the word falls under. If you see “Apple” some of you may think of fruits and others may type in technology. With each mistake you make, another clue is revealed to make it easier to identify the category.
If you guess correctly, you win and the game stops, but if you’re wrong, another clue is revealed and the wrong answer remains visible at the bottom to ensure you don’t repeat it. This continues until all 5 clues are on your screen, which is when you have one last chance to guess the category correctly. The aim of this LinkedIn puzzle game is to guess the category while revealing the least number of clues. The categories may be abstract such as “thinks you can eat” or “things you can break” so don’t be shy to use your words to explore what might link these words together.
How to Play Queens
In the LinkedIn logic puzzle Queens, you’re presented with an 8×8 grid that has different coloured sections with 64 boxes laid out in front of you. In order to play, you need to have one Queen symbol in every row, and one in every column—no more than one in each. You also have to ensure that every colored region has only one Queen. These Queens cannot touch each other, not even in a diagonal configuration.
If you tap on a box once, you get the “X” symbol, and if you tap twice, you get a crown for the Queen. You can use the X to block off boxes and remind yourself not to put a Queen in that region to make it easier to remember which row/column/color is already taken. When you make an error and have two Queens overlapping the symbol will turn red to indicate an error.
You can start anywhere on the grid and tap twice on the box to place a Queen there. Once done, tap once on all the boxes in that row/column/color to place an X to ensure you don’t put a Queen there. It might be helpful to start with the color that has the least number of boxes and proceed from there. A timer will count how long it takes for you to get through the game, and you can share your score with your network to let them know how you did. This LinkedIn gaming feature requires a little bit of patience, but it’s still not impossible to get through.
How to Play Crossclimb
Crossclimb is a word game that requires you to decipher clues to determine a four-letter word that can fill in the empty blanks in each row. When you start the game, you’re presented with 7 rows, with the first and last rows locked. When you tap on the unlocked boxes, you will see blanks appear in front of you, with a clue at the bottom that you need to use to guess the word.
When you finish filling in the correct words from rows 2 to 6, you will have to use the indicators on the side to move the boxes higher or lower in the column to rearrange the words. To unlock the final two clues in this LinkedIn logic puzzle, you need to rearrange the word order in such a way that from top to bottom, each word differs by only one letter. For example “Sing” and “Sign” differ by only letter and may be placed next to each other. “Sing” and “Gong” have two different letters so they will not sit next to each other.
Rearrange the words so that as you move from top to bottom, one letter keeps changing in each one to create an entirely new word. If you do this correctly, the top and bottom rows will unlock and you’ll receive a new clue to fill in the remaining boxes. The top word will be similar to the word just below it with one different letter, and the last row will be a word that is one letter away from the word right above it. Now we’re not sure if the number of rows and the number of alphabets in each one will remain the same every day since the game just launched, but the playstyle of the game will remain unchanged.
What Happens to the Scores of the LinkedIn Gaming Platform?
The LinkedIn logic puzzles are a great idea to temper the content of the platform with some lightheartedness while also staying true to the more formal, intellectual identity the company tries to uphold. The games aim to create a leaderboard among the professional networks, ranking those companies taking the lead in finishing the daily puzzles. You can share your score individually if you want but your company affiliations can also be seen on the leaderboard. Each industry will have its own leaderboard, bringing company competition to its platform. Will employees get into trouble for playing or will employers appreciate the visibility for their organization? This is something we’ll have to see.
Personally, knowing that those in your network can see you playing games instead of grinding hard at your 9-to-5 doesn’t seem like a good idea, but if companies are receptive to it and give employees those few minutes of freedom, this could turn into a good thing. School leaderboards will also be visible to revive your “college rivalries” which is the more interesting detail.
Paolo Pasco, Games Editor at LinkedIn, has been credited for bringing Crosslimb and Pinpoint to the platform, and Thomas Snyder has been credited for introducing Queens, so there are at least two names to appreciate for being the brains behind the LinkedIn logic puzzles. Hopefully, these games hold onto user attention, allowing the company to invest in them more over time.