So, each day, I go to work and then fill up the holes in my schedule with little daily puzzles – things like Wordle, Catalogues, Connections, etc. Each of these games is a two to three minute brain teaser – very comforting to me in the familiarity. Some, like Wordle, keep track of your stats and streaks, making you come back each day.
I have recently discovered a new one, Endplay, which has been a blast and a worth addition to my daily list of mini-games to play.
If you are familiar with the popular Kosmos game, The Crew, then you’ll already know most of the rules to this.
Each day, you’ll get a new puzzle. Like the NY Times crossword, it starts easy on Monday and then the difficulty ramps up with each successive day culminating in a toughie on Sunday.
The puzzles are an exercise in trick-taking. You and a few of your closest bot friends are in a game. The different bots each have their own rule for playing – Max always plays the highest possible card, Minnie always plays the lowest, and Victor always tries to win the trick if he is able. Some of the players will have specific goals, and you are challenged to have all the players reach all their goals in this must-follow trick taking game.
There is a timer if you want to challenge yourself to solve the puzzle as quick as possible – but there is no hard limit, so you can really take as much time as you want. When you finish the puzzle, it’ll tell you how well you did as well as a few stats.
If you screw up, no worries – the game will tell you so, and then you have to option to either back up a single step or start anew.
If the one puzzle a day isn’t enough, there are now puzzle packs available with a bunch of new puzzles to play at whatever pace you want. Additionally, you can always go back in the archive and play all the puzzles since the inception of the site.
Endplay has become part of my daily routine, and I highly recommend it to anyone who loves trick taking card games. The game can be played on any browser, and best of all, it’s completely free!
I definitely recommend giving it a try! https://endplay.app/
Until your next appointment,
The Gaming Doctor
Thanks for this. I’m always looking for new daily puzzles. My most recent before this was Raddle, a pleasant twist on word ladders. Raddle.quest if anybody wants to check it out.
Confusing. Is it called Endgame or Endplay?
It’s Endplay.app. Typo on my part
It’s kind of boring? Just lookahead (and memory) really. Not really any strategy. Plus, they messed up the suit rankings. Should have been ranked by number of corners in a shape.
Dale,
I’m Jeff Carey, the creator of Endplay. Thanks so much for the write up here! This was my first attempt at building a puzzle/game, and so I was really thrilled to find out about this. I’ve gotten some positive feedback on this little puzzle, particularly from trick-taking fans, so I decided to continue my learning journey and work toward my first ever App Store app, which I’ve just recently gotten published. The app still offers a free daily puzzle and has no ads, just like the web version, but it also let your progress carry over between devices. Here’s a link to Endplay in the App Store, for anyone who may be interested: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/endplay-daily-logic-puzzle/id6814308751
Sincerely,
Jeff