If you are a Wordle player (opens in new tab), you might want to check out a new daily puzzle being tested in the New York Times this week. The puzzle is about numbers, not letters, but perhaps it wants to set another gaming milestone.

Yes, the beta version of the new game uses the same seductive shade of green that Wordle uses to let you know you've got a letter in the right place; after a year or so of playing Wordle, I think I've been trained to get a little excited by this color. Smart move, NYT, you've already got me hooked.

The new daily number puzzle game is called Digits, and the rules are pretty simple. You are given a target number and six other numbers that you must combine to reach that target; you add, subtract, multiply, or divide the six numbers to reach the target, but you do not have to use all the numbers to solve the puzzle.

Digits offers five puzzles each day. For today's first puzzle, the target is 55, and you will be given the numbers 1, 2, 4, 5, 10, and 25. A good place to start would be with 50, which is 5 x 10. From there, the next move would easily reach the target of 55.

After that appetizer, however, the puzzle quickly becomes more difficult. Fortunately, like Wordle, you don't have to get it right in one shot. If you don't hit the target number correctly, you can undo your guess and try again.

This type of number puzzle will be familiar to anyone who has seen the TV show "Countdown" (opens in new tab) - you may have seen it, as it has aired in the UK for over 40 years and has about 8,000 episodes (plus a comedy spin-off show ( open in new tab) is much funnier).

In a New York Times blog post on Digits (opens in new tab), Countdown is cited as inspiration, along with a French show called Des Chiffres et des Lettres. I have never seen the French program, but in the numbers round of Countdown, contestants are given a three-digit number and must multiply, divide, subtract, and add to reach that number using six other numbers. That's the Digits.

You can try out Digits (opens in new tab) in a beta test this week; as to whether Digits will be registered permanently, that depends on people's reactions. Based on the results of the test, the Greenlight Committee will decide whether to move the game into the development phase, where it will be coded and the design finalized." If the response to the game is not what the team expects, the committee must decide whether further tuning would be helpful or whether the game's development should be finished."

"If the response to the game is not what the team expects, the committee must decide whether further tuning would be helpful or whether the game should be finished.