A few weeks ago, in honor of World Emoji Day, which happens on July 17 every year, Apple has officially launched its original βEmoji Gameβ as the newest addition to Apple News+βs suite of word and number puzzles. Developers actually got a sneak peak of this game when Apple introduced iOS 26 along with other Apple OS 26, but now the rest of us donβt have to wait until the public release of iOS 26 to play the game. Emoji Game on Apple News+ is now available to play in the U.S. and Canada with iOS 18.4, iPadOS 18.4, and macOS Sequoia 15.4 or later.
The objective of the Emoji Game is for you to complete the three phrases by using the six sets of emojis given to you. Each group of emojis can have multiple meanings. To fill in the blanks, youβll need to find a set of emojis that best suits the blanks based on their meaning. Keep in mind that emojis can cross letters and words.
If youβre still stumped, you can expand at least one of the clues for more hints. This game is scored by how many moves you make. Dragging a set of emojis to any of the blanks or expanding the clue counts towards the number of moves you make. The least number of moves you can make is always six, which is considered βPerfectβ. The criteria on how you score is the following:
- π€© Perfection: 6 moves
- π Love It: 7 moves
- π Very Cool: 8 moves
- π Great Job: 9 moves
- π Nicely Done: 10+ moves
Regardless of how many moves you make, you can still solve/win the puzzle. Just like with other News+ puzzles, that puzzle will be counted towards your streak as long as you solved it on the day it was published and before next dayβs puzzle gets published. Revealing all words will disqualify that puzzle for your streak, and your streak will reset. Additionally, you can still have fun by catching up on previous puzzles as thereβs also an archive for puzzles going back to July 1, 2025.
Emoji Game is available to play in both the United States and Canada, and it joins Crossword, Mini Crossword, Quartiles, and Sudoku as part of Apple News+ Puzzles section, which seems like a good competitor to New York Times Games if you ask me. Keep in mind that you will need an active Apple News+ subscription to play all the puzzles, including todayβs, but you could play a few curated selections for free. Apple News+ cost $12.99/mo. after a free trial.
