Key Takeaways
- Bandle is a fun daily game where you guess a song one instrument at a time.
- The game provides clues like the song’s release year and YouTube view count.
- It’s free to play, with extra songs available on the app for a reasonable price.
I’m a big fan of getting my brain in gear with daily games like Wordle and Connections, but many of them revolve around words and it gets a bit repetitive. That’s partly why Bandle, where you guess a song one instrument at a time, has quickly become one of my favorite ways to start the day.
What Is Bandle?
Bandle is a free game where the aim is to listen to a song and name it. It’s not as simple as it sounds, though. You start by hearing only one of the instruments, like the drums. Other parts of the band, like the bass and backing vocals, are added after each guess. Your aim is to identify the song within six guesses—ideally fewer.
To help point you in the right direction, you also get given the song’s year of release, YouTube view count, and difficulty. You can disable this if you fancy more of a challenge, but I’ve not been brave enough to do that.
I’ve been playing Bandle for many months and I think it’s brilliant. A new song is available each day, which makes it a perfect addition to the daily games I play alongside Wordle. It doesn’t take too long to play and gives you that satisfying “aha!” moment—apart from the odd occasion where I don’t know the song at all and feel uncultured.
While you can happily play Bandle solo, I’ve found it’s even more fun with a partner or in a small group; see who can solve it quickest and compare your overall statistics.
Where to Play Bandle
As a newcomer, the best place to play Bandle is on the official website. It works smoothly on desktop and mobile.
If you find yourself hooked, you’ll want to move to the Android or iPhone app. It’s free to download and play the daily song, plus you get a bonus round of trivia about the track and artist. It’s also got a few more features, such as showing worldwide player stats so that you can see how your performance compares.
Outside the daily songs, the app has a small selection of additional tunes to play for free. If you want more, you can buy a pack that sells all past and future daily songs, along with special themed packs like TV show themes and video game scores.
Bandle is operated by an independent developer and it’s given me lots of entertainment, so I had no qualms about paying the reasonable one-off fee for the “full Bandle bundle” containing all songs. It means that if I miss a day, I can go back and play it—but this is entirely optional and the app is still great without spending a cent.
You might remember when Spotify bought Heardle, a game where you hear a few seconds of a song and have to identify it. Bizarrely, the company shut it down in less than a year. Thankfully, Bandle is far superior, and is under constant development with no signs of slowing down.
