Where Vertex Came From
Vertex began with an offhand comment. Sam Von Ehren, a game designer at The New York Times, met Deanna Destefano — one of the product designers behind the NYT Crossword app — at a party not long after moving to New York. Talking about the team's focus on word-based puzzles, Destefano mentioned wanting to try something built around color and shape instead. The idea stuck with Von Ehren, who started experimenting with a puzzle where connecting dots forms triangles, drawing on both tangrams and the pencil-and-paper dots-and-boxes game.
Two years later, after Von Ehren joined the Times Games team full-time, that early prototype became Vertex — a game where finishing the triangles reveals a low-poly illustration underneath.
Sourced from The New York Times' own Times Insider reporting on how Vertex was made, and Von Ehren's public developer portfolio.
How to Play
Connect the Dots
Draw a line between two dots with your mouse or finger to form a triangle.
Watch It Fill
Completed shapes fill with color, so you can see the hidden picture take shape as you go.
Use the Clue
Each puzzle includes a short clue, similar to a crossword hint, if you get stuck on where to connect next.
Difficulty Ramps Up
Later puzzles have more dots and less obvious shapes, so there's real room to improve.
Vertex Unlimited vs. the NYT Version
The official NYT Vertex is free to try, but full daily access sits behind a separate NYT Games subscription. This version keeps the same mechanic — connecting dots, forming triangles, revealing the image — without a daily cap or a subscription wall, so you can play through as many puzzles in a row as you want.
Frequently Asked Questions
What inspired Vertex?
A conversation between NYT game designer Sam Von Ehren and product designer Deanna Destefano about building something visual rather than word-based — see the source note above.
How is Vertex different from word games like Wordle?
It doesn't use vocabulary at all — the puzzle is entirely about spatial reasoning and pattern recognition.
Do I need an NYT Games subscription to play here?
No. This version has no daily limit and no subscription requirement.
Can I play on mobile?
Yes — tap between dots the same way you'd click with a mouse on desktop.
Explore More Games
If you enjoy word-based daily puzzles too, Connections Answers Today and Connections Unlimited are worth a look, along with Letterboxed NYT for testing your vocabulary. For something else non-word-based, 2048 is a good pick.
This game is not affiliated with or endorsed by Vertex or The New York Times.
