How to play Sumplete — the ChatGPT Wordle alternative

A Sumplete grid generated by AI
(Image credit: Sumplete)

You need to know how to play Sumplete if one Wordle a day isn’t enough for you. ChatGPT can generate entirely new games to test your brainpower. One of these has now grown into a fully-fledged game called Sumplete, available at sumplete.com. That’s right, this is an AI-generated game, but luckily you don’t need AI-level intelligence to play, and thankfully it won’t go off the rails either.

Here's how to play Sumplete.
 

How to play Sumplete — the rules

For a game created by an AI, Sumplete is incredibly simple. We like to think of it almost as a reverse Sudoku where instead of adding numbers, you are removing them.

The task is to remove numbers from the grid so that each row and column adds up to the target numbers outside the grid

Simply select a number to put a red ‘X’ through it and remove it OR place a green circle around any numbers you want to keep. Check out this example below. 

(Image credit: Sumplete)

Here's another example: in this simple 4x4 grid, we need to get the top row to add up to 3 exactly and the first vertical column to equal 2. Deleting a number from one row or column will of course impact the others and this is the heart of the game.

Check out the solution to this puzzle. This was an easy one but the largest 9x9 grids are pretty tricky and can even include some horrible negative numbers.

(Image credit: Sumplete)

How to play Sumplete — access

1. Go to sumplete.com

(Image: © Sumplete)

Go to sumplete.com in your browser.

2. Remove numbers in a row/column

(Image: © Sumplete)

Select numbers to remove them with a red "X" or keep them with a green "O". They should add up to equal the numbers outside of the grid on each row/column. Try and do the whole grid.

3. Start a new game or make it harder

(Image: © Sumplete)

Once you've solved the grid, select New Puzzle to start again or select the drop-down menu to choose a larger grid size for a harder puzzle.

Created by ChatGPT 

So how did an AI create a game? Creator Daniel Tait used ChatGPT on OpenAI’s website (not the Bing version) and entered the prompt “can you invent a logic puzzle similar to sudoku that doesn’t currently exist." 

After regenerating the AI’s response a few times, it hit upon Sumplete (which it originally called “Labyrinth Sudoku”) and after deciding he liked the look of it, Tait actually got ChatGPT to code it using HTML and Javascript. We tried to get the AI to create some games ourselves, with mixed results.  

As someone who works better with letters than numbers I will, for now, stick to Wordle, and if you need help with today’s puzzle, we’ve got you covered.

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Andy is a freelance writer with a passion for streaming and VPNs. Based in the U.K., he originally cut his teeth at Tom's Guide as a Trainee Writer before moving to cover all things tech and streaming at T3. Outside of work, his passions are movies, football (soccer) and Formula 1. He is also something of an amateur screenwriter having studied creative writing at university.