Lantern Riddles: free Lunar New Year riddle game

What is Lantern Riddles?

Guessing riddles written on lanterns is a Lantern Festival tradition. Buffer has lit ten lanterns, each with a riddle that needs a sideways look: read every word literally and look for the second meaning. Pick the answer before the lantern floats away.

Lantern Riddles is a free Lunar New Year riddle game. Guessing riddles written on lanterns is a tradition of the Lantern Festival, on the fifteenth day of the new year. Here, Buffer lights ten lanterns, and each one carries a riddle with one clear answer and four choices.

Every lantern slowly floats away, so you have 30 to 40 seconds to think sideways. The riddles get harder, from "What gets wetter the more it dries?" to word puzzles that only work if you read the question very literally. After each answer, a one-line explanation shows the trick.

At a glance

Category

Seasonal

Difficulty

Medium

Play time

3–5 min

Price

Free, in your browser, sign-up optional

How to play

Read the lantern

Each one carries a riddle with one clear answer, hidden behind a double meaning or a literal reading.

Answer before it floats

Four answers. Tap one or press 1 to 4 before the lantern drifts out of sight (30 to 40 seconds).

Hint for half

Stuck? The hint (or H) clears two wrong answers, but halves the points. A wrong answer or a lost lantern costs one of 3 lives.

Score

50 per riddle plus up to 100 for speed, halved with a hint. Ten lanterns: 4 easy, 3 medium, 3 hard.

Scoring

50 points per solved riddle plus up to 100 for speed; the hint halves them. Ten lanterns, best possible 1,500.

A wrong answer or a lantern that floats away costs one of 3 lives.

What it trains

Lateral thinking

Looking past the obvious reading of a question.

Close reading

Taking every word literally and spotting double meanings.

Thinking under time

Deciding before the lantern drifts out of sight.

Strategy and tips

Read every word literally

"Which word is spelled wrong in every dictionary?" means exactly what it says.

Look for a second meaning

A bottle has a neck, a needle has an eye, a comb has teeth.

Question the setup

If a riddle sounds impossible, check its assumptions. Can that animal really lay an egg?

Think about letters, not things

Some answers live in the spelling: count the letters in the key words.

Save the hint for hard lanterns

It clears two wrong answers but halves your points, so use it when you're truly stuck.

Why play Lantern Riddles?

Lateral thinking means stepping away from the first, obvious reading of a problem to find another way in. Riddles train it in seconds: they set up an expectation and reward the player who questions it. The explanation after every lantern shows the move, so you can use it on the next one.

Frequently asked questions