Get The Coast Adds Local Flavor to Games - Amuse Labs: Creators of PuzzleMe

Get The Coast is a digital-first local news outlet covering Okaloosa County, Florida, including Fort Walton Beach, Destin, Niceville, and Crestview. The publication reaches over 100,000 social media followers and thousands of newsletter subscribers with a popular weekday morning email. In 2025, they launched games with PuzzleMe, including a daily WordroW featuring words, places, and names from the Emerald Coast. Their readers call it the “local Wordle.” We spoke with Jared and Laiken Williams, the husband-and-wife team behind Get The Coast, about how they use locally relevant games to engage readers and deepen their connection to the community.

Can you tell us the story behind Get The Coast? What inspired you to start it?

Jared: We started in 2017-2018 with a video component, native social videos around events and entertainment. Before that, I ran a company called MediaCrazed, where I built websites and content for local businesses, so I had the tools to move fast without hiring developers or videographers.

During COVID, we saw an opportunity to cover harder news: local government, schools, public safety. A lot of areas go without quality local news. Bigger publishers own tons of papers and sometimes can’t fulfill what we think is good local news. So we went back to basics: what are people looking for? Not just the bad stories, but what’s happening at the government level, what’s happening this weekend, what new businesses are opening. Ever since then, we’ve been all in on being the local news leader for our area.

Your newsletter talks about making local news an enjoyable experience. How do most people find and engage with your content?

Jared: We’ve got north of 100,000 followers combined across Facebook, Instagram, and X. That’s where people first find us. We drive them to our website, and from there we capture them for the newsletter.

The newsletter started because I was a big Morning Brew reader. I thought, this is a cool way to get in the inbox. So I send it out Monday through Friday by 6:30 a.m. The idea is to replicate that morning newspaper experience. Drink your coffee, know today’s headlines, be the smartest person in the office.

I don’t send an email to send an email. If there’s not enough local news, I don’t send. We keep it healthy, six to seven stories per day, with advertiser content mixed in. And that’s where games get pushed. The game is the second item in the newsletter every single day, right at the top.

Even if the subject line isn’t that intriguing, readers will open it for the game. We can see that in the statistics. We’ve got a 53% open rate, which I think is incredible. On days we don’t send a newsletter, the game barely gets played even though it’s published. That tells us who’s playing: our newsletter readers. And if the game isn’t included in the newsletter, we get responses from people saying, “Where’s the WordroW?” Or they’ll call it Wordle. “Where’s the local Wordle?” When you’re advertising as a sponsor of the games, you’re getting in front of eyeballs that are actually reading and engaging.

“Even if the subject line isn’t that intriguing to a regular newsletter reader, they will open it for the game.”

How did the idea for adding games come about? Was there a specific moment where you thought, “we should try this”?

Jared: I had followed Amuse Labs for a while through industry publications. There was a story years ago about publishers being able to create games you’d normally only see on the New York Times. I thought it would be cool to do this at a local level.

I thought the crossword was a nice throwback. I remember my grandfather used to do it everyday. If we’re trying to replace the morning paper with a morning newsletter, a game is a natural addition. But let’s localize it. Back in the day, crosswords weren’t localized. Now we can create our own version, and Amuse Labs makes it easy. We just come up with words and clues, and the software does the rest.

We started with a weekly crossword, then added WordroW and saw daily engagement go up. We’ve also started testing jigsaw puzzles with local scenery and places.

“Amuse Labs makes it easy. We just come up with words and clues, and the software does the rest.”

All your games have a local touch, which is really nice. How do you decide those words or the content for the games?

Laiken: I look for five-letter words in headlines or stories. Our readers told us early on: it needs to be five letters. They wanted to stick to Wordle’s rules. Now that we’ve used a lot of words, it’s getting harder. We pull from recent stories and link them so readers can learn more upon completion. Sometimes we use historical facts, and now we’re doing local last names too.

Upon completion, I add the reasoning and context behind the word with a link. It allows people to get to know a place, person, or thing that’s so local, and it makes a nice connection for them.

Jared: We really want to localize these games as much as we can because I think that’s what resonates with our readers.

Laiken: Today’s jigsaw was an old picture of our mall’s food court. Everyone local knows that place, we all have memories growing up there. I asked, “What was your favorite memory in the Santa Rosa Mall food court?” People reply to that. It’s great for engagement.

“We really want to localize these games as much as we can because I think that’s what resonates with our readers.”

Have readers told you about their experience with the local content in the games?

Laiken: They comment their solve times on the website every day. They love to tell you how fast they got it. They’ll get super excited if they get it on the first try, or say, “It took me five minutes. I had to come back to it.”

Jared: We regularly get emails saying, “Love the word today,” or “I had no idea what that even was.” People comment in person too. We’ve heard from local officials that it’s something they do with their daughter every morning before she goes to school. It’s a safe game, nothing profane or questionable. It’s supposed to be something you could do with your kids.

It’s helped people have a deeper connection to the content and to the area. And when they realized it’s a person doing it every day, not automated, that changed things. It’s the human element.

I see a local business sponsoring the games page. How did that come about?

Jared: We have people who want to advertise to get in front of the audience, but we also have people who just want to support local news. We’ve been honest about how hard it is to fund this.

Our local chiropractor said, “I’m just looking to do something.” I told him we have a daily game going out five days a week. His name would be associated with it in the newsletter, on social, and on the website. Every single day, he’s getting visibility. He signed up immediately.

For that advertiser, it’s set it and forget it. They know we show up every day. We also created a dedicated games sponsor kit with mock-ups showing placement on the website, in the newsletter, and on social. So when someone asks about sponsoring the games, we can send them something polished and specific.

If you had advice for other local news publishers thinking about getting sponsorships for games or in general, what would you share?

Jared: Take it seriously from day one. Make it a product. We treat it just as seriously as producing a story with ads running against it.

Don’t add games because everyone’s adding games. See how it pertains to your publication. For us, localizing it from the beginning was key. If you have a niche, maybe civic topics or events, find the games that resonate with that audience. Integrate it with your brand. Readers recognize when you’re taking it seriously, and sponsors do too, because you’ll have the stats to sell.

My advice: take it just as seriously as the editorial side, or get out of doing the games.