Let the games begin: Check out our newest venture and meet the editor crafting those tricky clues

Welcome to Gametime, a weekly newsletter recapping the past week of games on LinkedIn, what’s new in the puzzles space, and more — brought to you by LinkedIn Games Editor Paolo Pasco . Click 'Subscribe' to join the community and be notified of future editions.

Welcome to LinkedIn Games! We’re excited to bring you three daily games, all of which tap into valuable skills like logical reasoning and outside-the-box thinking. And, most importantly, they’re an easy way to give your brain an active break from work and spark friendly rivalries with your connections. Of course, I also think they’re very fun.

Before we get too deep, let me introduce myself. My name’s Paolo, and I write the content for our word games. This means if you’re stumped by a Crossclimb clue, or a Pinpoint category just escapes you, I’m the person you should be shaking your fist at (Sorry! But I believe in you). I’ve been working in the puzzles and games space for a while — I published my first crossword in the New York Times in 2015 and have been writing crosswords ever since. But I’ve been interested in puzzles since way before then. One of my earliest memories was solving a Sudoku in crayon on the living room floor (this is a true story that my mother can corroborate). I’m also a diehard puzzle solver; I’m part of a team that participates in the MIT Mystery Hunt (an annual, weekend-long puzzle event), and I was recently lucky enough to win the 2024 American Crossword Puzzle Tournament.

So, now that you know a bit about me: Why games on LinkedIn? I won’t spend too much time on that here, you can go deep in LinkedIn Editor in Chief Dan Roth’s introduction . But, in short, games are good for you! They can relieve stress, spark creative problem solving and open up fun conversations with your coworkers, friends and family. All of that is shown to have benefits well beyond the few minutes you’re playing.

Moving forward, this newsletter will cover interviews with game experts, news in the gameplay industry, weekly LinkedIn Games stats, and more. I’ll even give some sneak peeks into how I design the games you play — and you can always ask me questions directly in the comments. But for our first edition, I wanted to give you more background on each of our games and what you should know.

?? Pinpoint: Pinpoint is a game of finding commonalities. One at a time, you’ll see an example of something that fits a certain category. After each new example, you’ll have a chance to guess what that category is. Categories can be straightforward (DIAMOND, RING, COURT, FIELD and RINK are all areas where you play sports) or a little more tricky (SHIP, NATURE, GOOSE, TERESA, and OF PEARL are all terms that come after “Mother”). Creative thinking is key — it’s a great way to?flex your lateral thinking muscles.

Play today’s Pinpoint?

?? Crossclimb: For Crossclimb, you’ll be working with word ladders: lists of words where adjacent words are different by one letter, like WARM → WARD → CARD → CORD → COLD. In our version, you have to answer clues to get the words (like a standard crossword), then arrange them into a word ladder yourself. The only catch is that the clues in the top and bottom rungs won’t be unlocked until you solve the middle ones. We recommend putting in the answers to the clues you do know first. As you organize them into the ladder, it will spark ideas for clues you may not have known at first. If you want to test your trivia and vocabulary skills, Crossclimb is the game for you.

Play today’s Crossclimb?

?? Queens: Queens is a logic game that has deceptively simple rules: place crowns (aka “Queens”) on the given board, so there’s only one in each row, column and colored region. In addition, no two Queens can be in adjacent squares, even diagonally. That’s it. Using just those rules, though, you can get many unique games, with different interesting logical deductions each time. Strategy tip: Use X’s to mark where a Queen can’t be placed. It’s not required to solve the board — but can help you visually keep track of your progress.?

Play today’s Queens

New editions of each game will drop daily — and you can sign up to be alerted in your notification settings.

This week’s topic: All work and no play? Not at these best workplaces.

Speaking of fun and games…we recently released our 8th annual Top Companies list, ranking the best workplaces to grow your career, and we asked our honorees how they prioritize fun at work for their employees . We know that when colleagues have fun with each other, they strengthen their relationships, dream big and get things done — and research shows the benefits that can have on a company’s bottom line. We’d love you to weigh in:

How can prioritizing fun in the workplace boost productivity and engagement?

Share your thoughts in the comments below??

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