{"id":524,"date":"2025-06-17T15:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-06-17T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.actutech.app\/the-atlantic-is-making-a-big-push-into-games\/"},"modified":"2025-06-17T15:00:00","modified_gmt":"2025-06-17T11:00:00","slug":"the-atlantic-is-making-a-big-push-into-games","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.actutech.app\/en\/the-atlantic-is-making-a-big-push-into-games\/","title":{"rendered":"The Atlantic is making a big push into games"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" data-caption=\"\" data-portal-copyright=\"\" data-has-syndication-rights=\"1\" src=\"https:\/\/platform.theverge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2025\/06\/Unknown.png?quality=90&amp;strip=all&amp;crop=0,0,100,100\" \/><figcaption><\/figcaption><\/p><\/figure>\n<p class=\"has-text-align-none\">Daily puzzle games are seemingly everywhere right now, and starting today, you\u2019ll be able to add a new stop to your puzzle rotation: <em>The Atlantic<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"has-text-align-none\">The publication is launching a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/games\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">new hub for its growing game offerings<\/a>, including already available games like <em>Bracket City<\/em> and <em>Caleb\u2019s Inferno Crossword Puzzle, <\/em>as well as some new puzzles. You\u2019ll be able to access the hub on both the web and in <em>The Atlantic\u2019s<\/em> app.<\/p>\n<p class=\"has-text-align-none\">Caleb Madison, <em>The Atlantic\u2019s<\/em> director of games, gave <em>The Verge<\/em> a demo of most of the games available in the hub ahead of today\u2019s launch:<\/p>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/games\/bracket-city\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em>Bracket City<\/em><\/a>, which <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/press-releases\/archive\/2025\/04\/introducing-bracket-city-atlantics-new-game\/682334\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em>The Atlantic<\/em> licensed earlier this year<\/a>, requires you to solve clues nested in brackets that eventually resolve into a fun fact about that day in history.<\/li>\n<li><em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/games\/stacks\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Stacks<\/a><\/em>, a new game, is kind of like <em>Tetris<\/em> meets <em>Wordle<\/em>, Madison says. You have a bank of words that you have to place in the correct order, on top of letters already on the board, to form other words.\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>In <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/games\/fluxis\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Fluxis<\/a><\/em>, another new game, you try to figure out words that build off the previous word and incorporate some kind of characteristic. Madison showed me an example of needing to build an adjective off the word \u201ccheckerboard\u201d \u2014 he went with \u201carduous.\u201d<\/li>\n<li><em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/games\/calebs-inferno\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Caleb\u2019s Inferno Crossword Puzzle<\/a><\/em>, which is already included in the monthly <em>Atlantic<\/em> magazine and available online, is last game Madison showed me. <em>Caleb\u2019s<\/em> crossword is a narrow rectangle instead of a square, but as you move farther down the puzzle, the clues get more difficult to solve.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div class=\"image-slider\">\n<div class=\"image-slider\">\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/platform.theverge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2025\/06\/IMG_7202.jpg?quality=90&amp;strip=all&amp;crop=0,34.508988896824,100,30.982022206352\" alt=\"\" title=\"\" data-has-syndication-rights=\"1\" data-caption=\"&lt;p&gt;Bracket City.&lt;\/p&gt;\" data-portal-copyright=\"\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/platform.theverge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2025\/06\/Stacks-Mobile.png?quality=90&amp;strip=all&amp;crop=0,36.243281709053,100,27.513436581895\" alt=\"\" title=\"\" data-has-syndication-rights=\"1\" data-caption=\"Stacks.\" data-portal-copyright=\"\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/platform.theverge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2025\/06\/Fluxis-Mobile.png?quality=90&amp;strip=all&amp;crop=0,36.357682692761,100,27.284634614478\" alt=\"\" title=\"\" data-has-syndication-rights=\"1\" data-caption=\"Fluxis.\" data-portal-copyright=\"\" \/>\n\t<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"has-text-align-none\">Madison doesn\u2019t necessarily see <em>The Atlantic\u2019s<\/em> games as replacing your visits to other daily puzzles. \u201cI think people have a pretty ravenous diet for new games, so I don\u2019t think coming to <em>The Atlantic<\/em> precludes any of these other amazing games that are at <em>The New York Times<\/em> or Apple News or LinkedIn,\u201d Madison says. \u201cWhat I feel like <em>The Atlantic<\/em> has to offer that\u2019s different from those publications is a little bit more of a bespoken, artisanal aesthetic.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"has-text-align-none\">Madison also tries to bring an \u201caesthetic narrative component\u201d to games to help them feel \u201cimmersive and special.\u201d <em>Bracket City<\/em>, for example, has some city-themed elements sprinkled throughout, like the \u201cfan mail\u201d email being <a href=\"mailto:mayor@bracket.city\">mayor@bracket.city<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"has-text-align-none\">Like with <em>The New York Times<\/em>, some aspects of <em>The Atlantic<\/em>\u2019s games will only be available if you\u2019re a paid subscriber. <em>Bracket City<\/em> and all of its archives are free. The full archives for <em>Stacks<\/em>, <em>Fluxis<\/em>, and <em>The Atlantic<\/em>\u2019s daily mini crossword will be behind a paywall, however; nonsubscribers will only have access to the three most recent puzzles for those games. All of the <em>Caleb\u2019s Inferno <\/em>crossword puzzles are exclusive to subscribers.<\/p>\n<p class=\"has-text-align-none\">Madison says he has \u201ca lot of plans\u201d for more games, including long-form games of some kind. \u201cI\u2019m trying to make no assumptions as to what that would look like and just forge forward creatively to see what a more layered day-to-day experience would be like.\u201d He didn\u2019t want to give anything specific away, but he says, \u201cI am excited to innovate in the game space and bring unique and authentic, long-form game experiences to <em>The Atlantic<\/em> users and to people online.\u201d<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Daily puzzle games are seemingly everywhere right now, and starting today, you\u2019ll be able to add a new stop to [&hellip;]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":525,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center 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