Published August 15, 2026 · by Calli & Eden, Flying Comet Games
The short answer: three of LinkedIn's eight games — Queens, Pinpoint, and Crossclimb — have official free homes on Forbes Games, no LinkedIn needed. For the other five, there are honest unofficial sites with the archives LinkedIn doesn't keep, and the older puzzle genres the games are based on. Everything below was checked on August 15, 2026. We make daily puzzles ourselves, so where we genuinely match a LinkedIn game we say so — and where we don't, we say that too.
LinkedIn launched games in May 2024 with Queens, Crossclimb, and Pinpoint, and has added one every few months since: Tango (October 2024, designed by three-time World Sudoku Champion Thomas Snyder), Zip (March 2025), Mini Sudoku (August 2025, built with the Japanese puzzle publisher Nikoli), Patches (March 2026), and Wend (June 2026) — eight daily games as of this writing. They're genuinely good puzzles, free to play, and LinkedIn says most players come back the next day.
The limits, verified against LinkedIn's own help pages: one puzzle per game per day, released at midnight Pacific, and no archive — yesterday's puzzle is gone. You can now play as a guest without an account (a real improvement many roundups have missed), but a guest score is kept for only 30 minutes, and streaks, leaderboards, and comparing with connections all require signing in — inside LinkedIn's app or site, next to your professional feed. If any of that is the part you'd rather skip, the alternatives below are the fix.
One honest caveat before the list: the "unlimited" and "archive" sites are unofficial fan projects built on LinkedIn's game concepts. We label them as such, they label themselves as such (the good ones do, anyway), and they could disappear if LinkedIn ever objects. The durable recommendations are Forbes (licensed), the genre sites (which predate LinkedIn's versions by years), and the NYT.
Best for: the real daily puzzles, officially, without opening LinkedIn. Forbes' games hub carries licensed versions of Queens, Pinpoint, and Crossclimb, each marked "By LinkedIn" — the only official home for LinkedIn games outside LinkedIn that we found. Free with standard site ads, no LinkedIn account, and because it's licensed, it won't vanish the way clone sites can. The catch: only the three launch-era games — no Tango, Zip, Mini Sudoku, Patches, or Wend.
Best for: Queens with an archive and unlimited boards, no login. An unofficial Queens with a daily puzzle, an unlimited mode, and a browsable archive of past days — the things LinkedIn doesn't offer. The site says it's free forever with no ads during play and no account needed, and it carries an explicit not-affiliated-with-LinkedIn disclaimer, which we count in its favor.
Best for: Queens players ready for the deeper genre it came from. Queens is a one-star variant of Star Battle, a genre that long predates LinkedIn. This long-running site has grids from 5x5 to 14x14 with one to six stars, unlimited play, and daily, weekly, and monthly specials. Free with ads (an optional patron membership removes them), no account required — and nothing here depends on LinkedIn's goodwill.
Best for: Tango practice beyond one puzzle a day. Unofficial Tango-style sun/moon puzzles at 6x6, 8x8, and 10x10, with a daily mode, hints, and unlimited play — no sign-in. It states plainly that it's an independent practice site not affiliated with LinkedIn.
Best for: the original genre behind Tango, at serious sizes. Tango is a Takuzu/Binairo variant with clue signs added. The genre site runs from 6x6 all the way to 20x20 in easy and hard, with unlimited play and no mandatory account, free with ads. Same durable puzzle-*.com network as the Star Battle site.
Best for: Zip fans who want the archive LinkedIn doesn't keep. Unofficial Zip-style path puzzles with unlimited boards from 6x6 to 12x12, a shared daily puzzle, and a full archive of past dailies — no signup, no email, no download, per the site. It states clearly that it's independent and LinkedIn's Zip is LinkedIn's own game.
Best for: more than one word ladder a day. Unofficial Crossclimb-style trivia ladders: a daily puzzle, an unlimited mode with shareable seeds, a numbered library, and an archive — free, no sign-in, nothing to download, with a footer disclaiming any affiliation with LinkedIn or Microsoft. Forbes has the official daily; this is where you go when one ladder isn't enough.
Best for: Patches players — the source genre with far more room. Press coverage of Patches' March 2026 launch notes it draws on Shikaku, the Japanese rectangle-division genre. The genre site offers grids from 5x5 to 25x25 with unlimited play, free with ads, no account needed.
Best for: Wend fans who want a polished trace-the-words daily. The closest established analog to Wend: trace hidden theme words through a letter grid, using every letter. The daily puzzle is free to play; the archive requires a NYT Games subscription. Different theming, same satisfying every-square constraint.
We're not a LinkedIn clone, so the honest mapping is mixed. The genuine match: Sudo-goose is a daily sudoku like Mini Sudoku — same midnight Pacific reset, no account needed, and a free archive of every past puzzle, which is exactly what LinkedIn doesn't offer. The partial matches: Common Three works the same word-category muscle as Pinpoint through a different mechanic, and Word Search is the closest thing we have to Wend. For Queens, Tango, Zip, and Patches we have no real equivalent — the genre sites above will serve you better, and we'd rather send you there than stretch the claim.
What we add around the matches is the structure LinkedIn's games lack: thirteen free daily games with archives, optional streaks and friend leaderboards via a free account, and no professional feed anywhere in sight. The honest part: the site shows ads, and one optional one-time purchase removes them forever — no subscription, ever.
Yes, three ways. LinkedIn's own help page now says non-members can play its games as guests (though a guest score is kept for only 30 minutes, and streaks and leaderboards need an account). Forbes Games hosts an official, free Queens marked 'By LinkedIn' with no LinkedIn login. And unofficial sites like wordle.global's Queens run daily puzzles plus an archive with no account at all.
No — there's no official archive. Each game keeps only the current day's puzzle, and yesterday's vanishes at the midnight Pacific rollover. That's the single biggest thing the alternatives on this page add: the unofficial sites keep archives, and every Ponder Club game has a free archive built in.
A binary-balance logic puzzle — the established genre is called Takuzu or Binairo (fill the grid with two symbols, balanced, no three in a row), and Tango adds = and x clue signs. The original genre is playable free at puzzle-binairo.com in sizes up to 20x20.
A Star Battle variant — the long-standing genre where you place stars so every row, column, and region gets exactly one, none adjacent. Queens is the one-star version with colored regions. The deeper original lives at puzzle-star-battle.com.
Midnight Pacific Time, one new puzzle per game per day, per LinkedIn's help pages. (Ponder Club's daily puzzles happen to reset at midnight Pacific too, so the rhythm transfers.)
Wend, launched June 9, 2026 — trace the day's hidden words (four to seven of them) through a letter grid, using every square exactly once. It's LinkedIn's eighth game and its first new word game since the 2024 launch trio.
More from Ponder Club: all 13 free daily puzzle games, the NYT Games alternative guide, sites like Puzzmo, and the FAQ.