Pinpoint, Queens, and Crossclimb… game on!
Today, we officially launched our daily lineup of thinking-oriented games, delivered by LinkedIn News.
Games are all about connection for us. LinkedIn’s mission has always been to connect the world’s professionals to make them more productive and successful. And, as the world of work has shifted in the last 20 years since LinkedIn’s founding, so has the way people connect with each other.
I’m excited to share a bit more about our first games, and how we’ve designed them to build the future of how we’ll stay in touch with our colleagues, reignite relationships from past phases of our professional lives, and make the connections that will shape what’s next. Let’s dive in!
Pinpoint is our word association game — there’s five words inside a grid, and your objective is to guess (or pinpoint, dare I say!) what common category all the words belong to. But there’s a twist: the five words are hidden, and only one is revealed at a time. You want to guess the category in as few reveals as possible.
Queens is our logic game. The goal here is to fill the grid with queens (👑) such that there is one — and only one — queen in every row, column, and region…with no queens touching each other. There’s only one right answer, and it’s always possible to solve without guessing. And, of course, it’s a race against the clock!
Crossclimb is our trivia game. Think of it as a combination of a crossword and a word ladder: you use a mix of your trivia and word knowledge to fill out the words in the ladder. As you fill in words, you’ll rearrange them such that each word in the ladder differs by only one letter — which unlocks two final clues to win the game.
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We’ve designed each game to only take a few minutes, and fit right into your work schedule — whether it’s prepping your mind on the commute in, taking a quick mental break between meetings, or unwinding after a long day. There will be only one edition of each game each day, crafted by the best puzzle makers in the world: our daily Pinpoints and Crossclimbs are created by Paolo Pasco, this year’s American Crossword Puzzle Tournament champion and LinkedIn’s Games Editor. And our Queens grids will be created by a roundup of talented creators, with this month’s grids crafted by Thomas Snyder, three-time World Sudoku Champion.
But the best part? It’s what happens after you play. Of course you’ll be able to see your score and streak, and share it to start all the fun banter, celebrations, and conversations with your connections. But we’re taking it several steps further, in a way that only LinkedIn can…
I couldn’t be more excited about today. It’s day 1 in our foray into thinking-oriented games, and I can’t wait to see where this journey takes us. It’s time we turn over a new leaf in how we deepen and reignite relationships at work, and put fun at the heart of it.
It’s also 6:30am, which means it’s time for me to get my daily round of Queens in. I’ll see you on the leaderboard!
You can find the games at lnkd.in/pinpoint, lnkd.in/queens, and lnkd.in/crossclimb, in the LinkedIn News section on desktop, and in the My Network tab on both desktop and mobile. If you're on iOS or Android, please update to the latest app!
Project Manager @ BioSpring
4dLakshman Somasundaram Hi, I thought of a feature that I would love to see for LinkedIn games. I would like a button on the Results landing page for each game saying “Share today’s time with others” and then there’s a ranked list of your 1st connections who also played today if they shared their score that day… Other options: you can only view their times after opting in to share yours; after that, the scoreboard link stays on the Results landing page for reference that day; maybe a setting for all games to opt in for your Time results to be shared with 1st connections.
Absolutely love these games!
Experienced Writer/Editor: Technical and Creative
4wI’m hooked on them. I play all 3 of them every, single day.
Spiritual Coach
1moQueens and crossclimb i love to play 😁😁
Spiritual Coach
1moI think pinpoint could be made more interesting 🌺🌺