Riddle adds live leaderboards to mini-games

Riddle.com has expanded its leaderboard tools to support mini-games like crosswords, Sudoku and Minesweeper, giving publishers a new way to turn casual play into repeat visits without developer work. The launch leans on Riddle’s engagement data and no-code tools to help media companies and brands build recurring competitions and capture more audience data.

Why it matters: - Live leaderboards give publishers a way to turn one-time game plays into recurring habits. - The feature is designed to boost retention by giving readers a reason to return hourly, daily or weekly. - Riddle says the setup requires no development work, which lowers the barrier for publishers and brands.

What happened: - Riddle.com announced that its leaderboards now support mini-games. - Publishers, media companies and brands can now connect games such as crosswords, Sudoku and Minesweeper to live standings. - The standings rank players by score and speed. - The update was announced Aug. 7, 2026, in Saarbrücken, Germany.

The details: - Leaderboards were previously available for quizzes and score predictors. - The expanded format lets publishers build competitions around a single game. - A crossword can run on a daily board, a weekly board or a season-long board. - Leaderboards can also combine different formats, including quizzes, games and predictors, into one standings table. - Riddle says its platform handled 3.13 billion questions in 2025. - Riddle says its platform logged 8.96 billion data points in 2025. - Riddle says interactive content delivered 3.02x more engagement than standard web pages. - Riddle says quizzes and personality tests averaged session lengths of 2 minutes 48 seconds. - Riddle says a typical article or blog post averaged 54 seconds. - Riddle's AI can automatically refresh formats such as Sudoku. - Editors can generate other new games in seconds, making daily publishing more practical. - The expanded leaderboards can score players on accuracy alone or on speed plus accuracy. - Publishers can link a lead-capture form so players enter a name or email to claim a place on the board. - Publishers can match the look and feel of their own brands using Riddle's design and white-label tools. - Publishers can keep revenue from their own ad inventory around games and leaderboards. - The leaderboards connect to Riddle's analytics and to third-party tools including Google Analytics and Adobe Analytics. - The feature publishes through Riddle's standard embed code and works with any website or content management system. - The feature sits inside Riddle's library of more than 30 interactive formats, including quizzes, polls, personality tests, predictors, interactive graphics, stories and forms.

Between the lines: - The release frames leaderboard mechanics as a retention tool, not just a game add-on. - Riddle is tying the product to first-party data capture, branding control and ad monetization. - The company is also positioning AI-generated content as the operational fix for keeping boards fresh without adding editorial burden. - Boris Pfeiffer, founder and CEO of Riddle, said readers will play a game once, but will return if something is at stake.

What's next: - Publishers can start using the expanded leaderboards immediately through Riddle's embed system. - The most likely use cases are recurring daily boards, weekly competitions and longer seasonal races. - Riddle is likely to push the feature across its broader interactive-content stack as part of a wider retention and data strategy.

The bottom line: - Riddle is trying to make mini-games more sticky by adding competition, scoring and recurring rankings, while giving publishers a no-code way to drive repeat traffic and capture more audience data.