2025 End-of-year cheer and puzzles to ponder

Created with the utmost gratitude and joy, the Luminary Labs team is delighted to share a collection of handcrafted puzzles inspired by some of our favorite online word games. We wish you a prosperous and insightful 2026.

Word GUESS

Guess the five-letter word.

How to play: You have six attempts to guess a five-letter word. After each guess, the letter tiles will turn 🟩 green if a letter is correct and in the right spot, 🟨 yellow if it’s in the word but in the wrong spot, or ⬜️ gray if it’s not in the word at all. Use these colored clues to make a new guess, continuing until you guess the word or run out of attempts.

Hint: This year, Luminary Labs published results from our latest open innovation outcomes survey. Nine out of 10 winning teams (89%) continued developing their solutions after winning, with 62 of those teams collectively raising at least $630 million in post-challenge funding.

Play Word GUESS

Word GROUP

Identify four groups of four words.

How to play: From a grid of 16 words, find four groups of four words that share a common theme. The game ends when you find all four groups or make four mistakes. This game is color-coded by difficulty — 🟨 yellow, 🟩 green, 🟦 blue, and 🟪 purple, from easiest to hardest — though this rating is subjective and will depend upon your personal reference points and areas of expertise!

Hint: We are energized by complex, multistakeholder spaces where the solutions are not obvious and the potential for impact is high. Our work spans four focus areas: the future of health, scientific discovery, infrastructure, and the future of work and education.

Play Word GROUP

Word FIND

Reveal hidden words related to a theme.

How to play: Connect letters in a grid to form words related to the puzzle’s theme, which will turn 🔵 blue once identified. The puzzle also includes one special word that describes the overall theme and touches opposite sides of the grid; this word will turn 🟡 yellow once highlighted. Drag or tap letters to form words, and submit a word by double-tapping the last letter on a touch device or by releasing your click on a computer. Word shapes can zig and zag, and are not always arranged in a straight line. Earn hints by finding non-theme words.

Hint: To make important decisions and place big bets on the future, leaders must first make sense of the present moment. In a new thought leadership series, we explore near-term possibilities and longer-term implications related to some of the biggest problems and opportunities of this decade.

Play Word FIND

Feeling nostalgic for holiday seasons past? Our 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024 cookbooks are all available online. And if you haven’t had your fill of games, you can revisit Luminary Trivia from 2019.