Wordle meets the periodic table: Five games to test your chemistry knowledge

Elementle 

The aim of Elementle is to guess the element correctly by typing guesses into the search bar. Each attempt shows whether the letters of the element’s symbol are correct, with the same in-game colours as Wordle – a yellow square shows a correct letter in the wrong place, while a green square shows a correctly placed letter. A handy arrow also tells you whether your guess has fewer or more protons than the hidden element. If you get stuck, the hint gives you information about the element’s uses.

Difficulty ★★★☆☆

Trying to remember where elements are relative to each other is a little tricky, especially without a periodic table.

Amusement ★★★☆☆

This was fun to play the first few times but got rather repetitive.

Chemdle

Organic chemists, this one is for you. Test your synthetic knowledge by working out the product of the reaction and draw it in the box. Expect named reactions, drug syntheses and total synthesis transformations.

Guesses that have a blue border are intermediate structures, while red borders indicate that guesses are fully or partially incorrect. The game provides feedback for each guess, by highlighting correct parts of the structure in green and incorrectly connected atoms in yellow. 

Difficulty ★★★★☆

Unless you’re clued up on your mechanisms, this one might leave your brain feeling a bit scrambled.

Amusement ★★☆☆☆

It felt more like revision than a way to relax.

Words for nerds

In Words for nerds, you have six chances to crack a five-letter science-themed word. Just like in Wordle, the tiles change colour after each guess to show how close you are. Not sure where to begin? I like to kick things off with ‘alpha’. And if you’re after a tougher test, switch to hard mode and try solving six-letter words instead.

Difficulty ★★★☆☆

The process is simple, but it is surprisingly difficult to think of science-related words with only five or six letters.

Amusement ★★★★☆

If you like Wordle, you’re bound to like this version. You might even pick up a new term along the way – I learned ‘biped’.

Chemidle

In Chemidle, the goal isn’t to guess a word – it’s to solve a balanced chemical equation. You build your guess using numbers, chemical symbols from the first 20 elements in the periodic table, arrows and plus signs. Like Wordle, yellow tiles indicate correct components in the wrong position, while green tiles show you’ve placed them correctly.

Difficulty ★★★★☆

This game certainly put my brain to work, even if most of the balanced equations are simple reactions.

Amusement ★★☆☆☆

I think it would have been more fun to have some hints to go alongside this game, as it somewhat felt like making random guesses.

Periodle

Much like our jumbo crosswords , Periodle combines element symbols to make words. Players have eight guesses to figure out the hidden 6–10 lettered word. Green cells indicate a symbol is in the right place, while misplaced symbols are yellow. Orange cells show a letter of the symbol is correct but indicates that the solution uses a different element symbol for that letter, ie if S (sulfur) is orange, then try using Se (selenium) or As (arsenic).

My go to starting words are SPOON, CaSINO or NOISeS.

Difficulty ★★★★★

Don’t be deceived by how simple this looks. Words can be quite hard to make out of element symbols .

Amusement ★★★☆☆

A daily brain teaser that’s for sure. Make sure you pencil some time out for this one.