The Games I Play
Feb. 20th, 2026 08:51 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
memelainaI've always liked word games. I played them as a child. Scrabble, crosswords, ghost. But now I have an ulterior motive. I play them to keep my aging, post-stroke brain moving. My neurologist, my speech therapist, most of my other doctors are thrilled. And surprised. Me? I still enjoy the games, but I see myself playing slower, getting lower scores, feeling more frustration. But I still keep playing.
What do I play? Every morning I play five NYT games. Politically, I'm at odds with the Times, but the games? I still play the games. I start with Wordle. I play it not to get the answer quickly, but to get it accurately. And I 'win' nearly every time. My first two words are various combinations of the letters RSTN and either L or D, plus all five vowels. So, for example SNORE AUDIT or SNAIL ROUTE. With that start I usually get it in two more tries. But sometimes it takes six. I won this morning in three.
Next is Globle. You always win Globle if you play long enough. You name a country, and the game tells you how far you are from the winning answer. This morning I played Brazil first. About a thousand plus miles off. So next was Democratic Republic of the Congo. That was closer so I went north to try Morocco, which was even closer. Thinking to knock out Europe so I could concentrate on all those Africa counties, I guessed France - and it was bright red which means it is touching the answer. Switzerland. Yep. That was it. Five guesses. A very good score for me. Usually I'm seven, or eight, or seventeen. So that's two out of five wins this morning.
Connections is the hardest game for me. You get a grid of sixteen words and you have to choose four that "go together". But the logic can be crazy. They deliberately post words with double meanings so you THINK it goes with something else. You get only six guesses. Then you lose. I lose about 50% of the time. But today I won. With only two wrong guesses. Today was good.
My fourth game is Spanogram. It's a word finding puzzle. As a kid I gave those up in about 5th grade because they were too easy. These ones each have a theme, and all the words fit the theme, and you have to use every letter on the grid and no letter twice. You can get hints, and sometimes I do, but it's not timed and you can work at it all day if you like. So, essentially, everybody always 'wins' if they want to.
And my last game is Chrono. Delayed gratification. It's the one I like best and do well at. They list six historical events and you put them in order. There's usually one ancient, one from the middle ages or renaissance, and several relatively modern. Often very close to each other in time. I've done ones where all the events are within a span of 100 years. You get three tries. If you miss, the events will light up for right answers, and let you try rearranging the wrong answers. Which came first - the invention of galvanized rubber or the Mexico-Comanche war? You get three chances. I rarely lose this one and it's my favorite.
That's it for the morning. Although I play my online "Scrabble Go" games on and off all day. Usually have five or six going all the time. I win slightly less than half, but it keeps me bouncing to make four or five plays in a row against different people. I also play a block game where you tuck small square block combinations into a larger two dimensional square being careful not to run out of space so that you can't place the next block formation. I do that on and off. Sometimes leaving it for a day or two, sometimes during commercials or while waiting for an appointment.
But mostly, at bedtime before reading, I play Sudoku. I'm not as good at it now as I was ten years ago, but I'm doing better than during the few months after my heart surgery - when my brain really didn't work at all. I use my own method. I've never investigated how one is supposed to play. My online game lets me have three errors before "losing" but it does allow me to complete the game even after losing. And I like that. I'm slow, but I do usually 'win' (again, how can you lose, when you play until you have solved the puzzle?).
My speech and cognitive therapist always asks about "your puzzles" at our weekly session and makes note of my answers. She thinks it's excellent practice. Like my daily tongue exercises, and the "word finding" exercises I do with her. The best thing about my therapist? She acknowledges that even though I still function almost entirely on an 'above average' level or better, she knows that this is not my normal level, and that it is frustrating for me. That is such a relief after having most other doctors and therapists shrug and say, "You're responding normally, why are you concerned?"
So now you know more than you ever wanted to know about the games I play. If I thought anyone was actually reading this, I would ask, "What games do you play?"
What do I play? Every morning I play five NYT games. Politically, I'm at odds with the Times, but the games? I still play the games. I start with Wordle. I play it not to get the answer quickly, but to get it accurately. And I 'win' nearly every time. My first two words are various combinations of the letters RSTN and either L or D, plus all five vowels. So, for example SNORE AUDIT or SNAIL ROUTE. With that start I usually get it in two more tries. But sometimes it takes six. I won this morning in three.
Next is Globle. You always win Globle if you play long enough. You name a country, and the game tells you how far you are from the winning answer. This morning I played Brazil first. About a thousand plus miles off. So next was Democratic Republic of the Congo. That was closer so I went north to try Morocco, which was even closer. Thinking to knock out Europe so I could concentrate on all those Africa counties, I guessed France - and it was bright red which means it is touching the answer. Switzerland. Yep. That was it. Five guesses. A very good score for me. Usually I'm seven, or eight, or seventeen. So that's two out of five wins this morning.
Connections is the hardest game for me. You get a grid of sixteen words and you have to choose four that "go together". But the logic can be crazy. They deliberately post words with double meanings so you THINK it goes with something else. You get only six guesses. Then you lose. I lose about 50% of the time. But today I won. With only two wrong guesses. Today was good.
My fourth game is Spanogram. It's a word finding puzzle. As a kid I gave those up in about 5th grade because they were too easy. These ones each have a theme, and all the words fit the theme, and you have to use every letter on the grid and no letter twice. You can get hints, and sometimes I do, but it's not timed and you can work at it all day if you like. So, essentially, everybody always 'wins' if they want to.
And my last game is Chrono. Delayed gratification. It's the one I like best and do well at. They list six historical events and you put them in order. There's usually one ancient, one from the middle ages or renaissance, and several relatively modern. Often very close to each other in time. I've done ones where all the events are within a span of 100 years. You get three tries. If you miss, the events will light up for right answers, and let you try rearranging the wrong answers. Which came first - the invention of galvanized rubber or the Mexico-Comanche war? You get three chances. I rarely lose this one and it's my favorite.
That's it for the morning. Although I play my online "Scrabble Go" games on and off all day. Usually have five or six going all the time. I win slightly less than half, but it keeps me bouncing to make four or five plays in a row against different people. I also play a block game where you tuck small square block combinations into a larger two dimensional square being careful not to run out of space so that you can't place the next block formation. I do that on and off. Sometimes leaving it for a day or two, sometimes during commercials or while waiting for an appointment.
But mostly, at bedtime before reading, I play Sudoku. I'm not as good at it now as I was ten years ago, but I'm doing better than during the few months after my heart surgery - when my brain really didn't work at all. I use my own method. I've never investigated how one is supposed to play. My online game lets me have three errors before "losing" but it does allow me to complete the game even after losing. And I like that. I'm slow, but I do usually 'win' (again, how can you lose, when you play until you have solved the puzzle?).
My speech and cognitive therapist always asks about "your puzzles" at our weekly session and makes note of my answers. She thinks it's excellent practice. Like my daily tongue exercises, and the "word finding" exercises I do with her. The best thing about my therapist? She acknowledges that even though I still function almost entirely on an 'above average' level or better, she knows that this is not my normal level, and that it is frustrating for me. That is such a relief after having most other doctors and therapists shrug and say, "You're responding normally, why are you concerned?"
So now you know more than you ever wanted to know about the games I play. If I thought anyone was actually reading this, I would ask, "What games do you play?"
