Games for Local News Sites
Trusted by local news sites
Two Ways to Run Games
PuzzleMe gives you a ready-made feed of daily games you can embed and forget, or the tools to build your own games from your news articles and local stories. You can also use a combination of both.
Puzzle Feed
A fresh lineup of games every day, automatically published with no ongoing effort.
Create Your Own
Turn your own content into engaging games using articles, photos, and stories with an easy-to-use editor.
Puzzle Feed
New games every day. Zero ongoing effort. Pick from our library of 6+ daily game types. Puzzle Feed includes a daily Mini Crossword, Large Crossword, Word Search, WordroW (like Wordle), Word Flower (like Spelling Bee), Slide, and Sudoku in three difficulty levels.
Marietta Daily Journal
A daily newspaper and website in Marietta, Georgia. They publish six games a day from Puzzle Feed: Mini Crossword, Large Crossword, WordroW, and Sudoku in three difficulty levels. They set up their games page once, and new games are published automatically every day.
Create Your Own
Build games from your own articles, photos, and local knowledge. Choose from nine game types, including Crossword, Word Search, WordroW, Quiz, Jigsaw, and Slide. Ask PuzzleMe AI to create the first draft or for ideas and suggestions. Or build a game yourself from scratch.
cleveland.com, news quizzes
cleveland.com, an Advance Local site serving Cleveland, turns its articles into quizzes on local politics, sports, and community stories. MLive, NJ.com, and Oregon Live do the same.
Texas Monthly, a themed word search
Texas Monthly branded their word search as Word Wrangler and built it around a distinctly Texan theme. A recent one, Go Team Mascots!, featured ten Texas college mascots.
Civil Beat, a mini crossword
Civil Beat, a nonprofit newsroom in Honolulu, publishes a mini crossword using Magic Fill. It fills the grid automatically and drafts clues once they’ve picked the key words.
Do Both
Mix Puzzle Feed with your own local games in one games section.
Smart Senior Daily
Runs four Puzzle Feed games alongside their own trivia game, Trivialities.
San Francisco Standard
SF Standard runs Mini Crossword and Large Crossword from Puzzle Feed, plus two games built from their own articles. WordroW uses words from their trending headlines. Jigsaw uses a photo from an article. Solve either one and it links through to the story.
Increase revenue with games
Sell sponsorships, add games to your subscription, or run ads, on their own or together.
1. Sponsorships
Local businesses get a brand-safe way to reach an engaged audience. Publishers see 8+ minutes on average with players, an audience worth reaching. B Square Bulletin, Wausau Pilot, Get The Coast, and The Local Scoop all sell sponsorships against their games section.
2. Subscriptions
Games are one of the biggest reasons readers subscribe and stay. NJ.com keeps some games free and puts others behind their paywall.
3. Ads
Display Ads stay visible throughout gameplay and can be refreshed every 30 seconds.
On desktop, multiple ads can be shown during a single game.
On mobile, one ad can stay visible throughout the game.
Built for small newsroom workflows
AI Puzzle Creation
Create locally relevant puzzles from your articles in minutes.
Puzzle Feed
Pick ready-to-go daily puzzles from our library to supplement your locally created puzzles.
Bulk Scheduling
Schedule puzzles for days, weeks, or months in advance.
On Brand
Customize puzzles to match your brand with custom fonts, colors, and messaging.
Try the PuzzleMe Interface
Frequently Asked Questions
Yes, absolutely. Most local publishers spend just 1 hour a week running their entire games program. No puzzle editor and no specialized skills needed.
Most publishers sell ad placement on the daily games page to local businesses like realtors, restaurants, and banks. Their brand gets in front of engaged readers who spend 8+ minutes on the page, every day. PuzzleMe gives you an analytics dashboard with play data you can share with sponsors, and you can build branded games or use lead generation to capture reader emails on their behalf.
Yes. PuzzleMe has built-in lead generation. You can ask readers for their name and email before they play, which is an effective way to grow your newsletter list. Advertisers can use it too, to generate leads from sponsored games. You can also run a contest and give away prizes.
Yes. Build a page behind your paywall and embed the game there. PuzzleMe only lets authenticated readers see it, so it becomes a real reason for paying readers to stay subscribed.
PuzzleMe embeds with a simple iframe, so it works on almost any CMS: WordPress, Newspack, Blox CMS, TownNews, Wix, Squarespace, Webflow, or your own platform. If your site can render a web page, it can run PuzzleMe. Not sure about your setup? Reach out and we’ll confirm before you commit to anything.
Yes. Embed PuzzleMe across multiple publications from one account and one dashboard. Lookout Santa Cruz and Lookout Eugene-Springfield both do this, running games on two sites from a single PuzzleMe account.
A daily Mini Crossword, Large Crossword, Word Search, WordroW, Word Flower, Slide, and Sudoku in three difficulty levels. Pick what you want and schedule it once.
Plans start at $99/month, and you save up to 10% when you pay annually. Try PuzzleMe free with our Personal Plan, no credit card needed. We also offer special pricing for nonprofit newsrooms, local news consortiums and networks. Get in touch and we’ll help you find the right plan.
Give readers a reason to come back every day.
