Make a word game cards

Create your own word games and logic puzzles to test friends, students, and strangers with these free websites.

Do you know what’s more fun than playing word games and logic puzzles? Creating your own games to test friends and strangers, which you can do with these free websites.

Puzzles have been scientifically proven to be good for your brain in various ways, including building memory, improving problem-solving skills, and enhancing your mood. The next step in the journey is to make your own games and quizzes. And it’s easier than ever with several free sites offering ways to create your own custom puzzle.

1. My Wordle (Web): Make Your Own Wordle Game

Who knew a simple 5-letter word guessing game would take the internet by storm? But Wordle has gone viral, with people posting their daily scores as emojis on every type of social media. Well, you can now make your own Wordle to test your friends with this simple app.

Visit the web page, and you’ll be prompted to type in a 5-letter or 6-letter word, which then generates a custom URL you can share with friends. In fact, the rest of the rules are the same as Wordle. Recipients have to guess the correct word in five attempts (or six in the case of a six-letter word). Wrong letters turn grey, correct letters turn yellow if on the wrong tile, and green if on the right tile.

Like the original, the app also generates shareable emojis of your winning turn. You can view your solving percentage statistics at any point, as long as you’re using the same browser each time. And no one needs to sign up to use the site.

2. ProProfs (Web): Create Your Own Word Games for Free

ProProfs is a simple website to create your own word games that anyone can play. Unlike several other free online puzzle makers, ProProfs doesn’t limit how many puzzles you can make at a time or how many people can play it.

Currently, you can create seven types of puzzles on ProProfs:

1. Word Search: List all the words you want, set a time limit, and give it a description for participants to begin their word search.
2. Crossword: Simply add the intended word and the hint for it. ProProfs will figure out the placement of the tiles.
3. Sliding puzzle: Add an image, choose how many pieces to break it up in, and ProProfs will create an online sliding puzzle where players unjumble the scrambled piece.
4. Jigsaw: A standard jigsaw puzzle maker where you can add the original image.
5. Hangman: Add a list of words for a five-chance words of Hangman.
6. Word Scramble: Add a word and a hint for players to solve an anagram and guess the original
7. Brain Teasers: A multimedia quiz where you can add an image and a text question (as well as a hint), and then an image and text answer.

While the variety is great, ProProfs doesn’t offer a lot of customization in the games. It’s probably ideal for teachers to make games for students rather than adults trying to challenge other adults.

3. Maze Generator (Web): Create a Custom Maze as Big as You Want

Who doesn’t love solving a maze puzzle? It’s one of those activities you start doing as a kid, and you can continue doing as an adult. But naturally, you want it to be more difficult. Maze Generator will let you create a custom maze as large and as difficult as you want.

Four main factors determine the difficulty and size of your maze. Columns and rows define how wide and how tall the maze will be. In general, a 20×20 grid is moderately challenging for an adult, but if you really want to push yourself, try a 50×50 grid. Next, choose your entry and exit points (corners, left and right, or top and bottom).

The fourth point of difficulty comes with a bias, which determines how the maze walls will be laid. So, for instance, if you want a lively challenge, you could set top and bottom entries, horizontal bias, and really crank up the columns. Plus, you can customize the background color, the maze color, and the thickness of the walls. And yes, you can download and print it for free.

4. My Word Search and Crossword Hobbyist (Web): Best Custom Word Search and Crossword Makers

While ProProfs lets you make your own word search or crossword puzzle, it’s a really basic version that doesn’t offer much customization. The best word game makers on the internet are My Word Search (MWS) and Crossword Hobbyist (CH), both from the same developers. They’re free for 30 days, after which you’ll have to buy a premium version (but there’s a discount to buy them together).

MWS has some really funky options, like choosing different puzzle shapes such as a flower, snowman, spiral, and other shapes apart from the usual square. You can set the puzzle size and the directions in which the words will appear. Once that’s set, just add your list of words, and you’re good to go.

Crossword Hobbyist makes crosswords in two ways. You can type your words and clues and have it auto-arrange for you, or you can set a grid and type directly in it. Registered users can also save their progress in any crossword, which is essential for crossword lovers. You’ll also be able to preview your crossword as you make it, and adjust on the go.

5. PuzzleScript (Web): Make Your Own Sokoban-Type Tile Puzzle Game

Sokoban is one of Japan’s oldest and most popular puzzle video games. The simple puzzle is about the player pushing crates to their designated place in a warehouse, but each level makes this more difficult. With PuzzleScript, anyone can make their own version of a Sokoban-type tile-based puzzle game with little to no coding knowledge.

Check the PuzzleScript How To section to learn the basic commands for all the ways in which your player can interact with the tile. It’s a pretty simple way to move crates either by pushing or pulling, which you can then use in the PuzzleScript editor. The engine also adds a few extra game features like an eyeball, a block, a sumo wrestler, a sprite, a kitty, and a fruit. Use them how you want to create a custom game.

You can check the gallery of games made with the PuzzleScript engine for inspiration and even import their code to start as a base for your game. It’s one of the easiest ways to create your own puzzle video game for free.

Don’t Be Oversmart

Whether you’re making a crossword puzzle or a maze, it’s tempting to try to do the hardest logic puzzle to challenge your players. But resist this and instead, choose a difficulty level less than what you think your players will enjoy. The key to making a great puzzle is not to make it impossible to solve but solvable after some thought and effort.

Recommended textbook solutions

The following list is yet another excellent resources for ESL/EFL teachers that will surely increase student engagement in the class. I am talking about easy-to-use, free word games generator online where teachers can easily create vocabulary games for review or warm up activities. I chose these websites because they focus only on one or two games thus they are specialized, very user-friendly and so convenient to use that you will be done making your games in seconds!

If you are not familiar with these warm up games, you may check out this post.

Free Word Games Generator

Spelling City

VocabularySpellingCity is an award-winning educational website focusing on spelling and vocabulary used by millions of teachers and parents worldwide. You can quickly start by creating your own word list and then choose an activity type for your students to play such as Spelling, Writing, Phonics, Vocabulary and more.

FlipQuiz

Are you familiar with Jeopardy? FlipQuiz is another free word games maker that does just that! It provides educators with a quick way to create your own game show-style boards for test reviews in the classroom. Traditionally, these are created tediously, using poster board, chalkboards, PowerPoint or dry-erase markers on overhead slides. The review questions themselves are usually written on a separate sheet of paper.

With FlipQuiz, questions are displayed on-screen and boards are saved for later use. Combined with a beautiful board, students are more likely to be interested and stay engaged with the test review process.

Puzzle Makers

There are many types of vocabulary puzzles for all ages including adults! I like the fact that I can have a number of different unique vocabulary puzzles created to printout on the same topic. So when we are studying a topic in English, say “Family and Friends”, I can print out six different sets then split the class into six groups and give them each a unique puzzle to solve.

Riddles

Riddle is an activity in which you must find out a word according to some given clues. Educaplay Riddles are quick games that can help the player review concepts through definitions, sounds and images. You can easily create your own riddle game when you register for a free account!

ALSO READ: Activities to End a Lesson

Brain Boosters

I love giving my kids brain booster activities! Discovery Education offers a wide selection of brain boosters that are fun and challenging! You can choose from different categories such as Logic, Reasoning, Word and Letter Play, and more! If your lesson finishes earlier than planned, you can easily go to the website and read out some brain boosters to your students!

Or you can simply download this ready-to-play Brain Teasers I made using PowerPoint.

Connect Fours

This fun and free word games generator is from my favorite ClassTools website! Students are shown 16 words. They need to group them into 4 rows of 4 connected items. This game is great for reviewing categories and making inference.

Bingo Baker

Bingo Baker makes it easy to create bingo cards. You can generate hundreds of random cards and print them using the printer-friendly PDF (with no ads or watermarks). You can also save paper (and waste electricity instead) by playing your bingo game online (it works on the iPad).

Instructions: Just type your words into the grid on the left. You can give your game a title and can change the BINGO column headings too.

Then click the Generate button and you are good to go!

HANGMAN.NO

The best site to create and play the classic letter guessing game hangman. Challenge your kids to guess as many secret words as they can before the time runs out. My students love the cool tune and slick animation!

THE WORD SEARCH

Let your students find hidden words in a grid of jumbled letters using this simple to use Word Search maker. You can create your very own or use their 100% free online collection of word search puzzles.

TABOO GAME

This website lets you create your own taboo cards by entering the word to be guessed in the top field and the taboo words in the bottom fields.

YOU MAY ALSO LIKE: Classroom Speaking Activities for Any Language Class

JEOPARDY LABS

This lets teachers create their own online games of Jeopardy by using their simple online editor. No powerpoint and no registration is required, and each game has its own unique url address so this really stands out for me.

If you prefer doing it offline, then check out my ELA Jeopardy Game!

WORD SCRAMBLE

Make your own set of jumbled words using this cool word scrambler. It allows you to give hints and the game comes with a timer.

MATCH THE MEMORY

Help your students improve not only their English but also their concentration skills with this powerful memory matching game creator! Make your own custom memory game using pictures, words, videos and more!

WHO WANTS TO BE A MILLIONAIRE

Create a fun, free review game in the style of Who Wants to be a Millionaire with up to 15 questions and whatever values you choose for each round. The graphics and sounds used in this game are similar to that of the television show making this review game more exciting!

WORD GENERATOR

I love this super convenient tool that generates words for your guessing game. All you need to do is choose the kind of guessing game you want to play, the category and level of difficulty and you are good to go – the word generator will give you a game word from the list and you can play!

QUIZLET LIVE

Quizlet Live is an online classroom vocabulary game tool where teams of three or four students work together to be first to match vocabulary terms with their correct definitions. It is free and easy to use, allowing teachers to create customized flash cards with text, images and audio. Similar to Quizlet Live is the interactive game maker Kahoot.

Not tech savvy? Try: ESL Warm Up Games with Free PowerPoint Downloads

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What would you add to these? Let us know in the comments!

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