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Wordle

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This article is about the word game. For the concept of visualizing text data, see tag cloud.

Wordle
A four-row grid of white letters in colored square tiles, with 5 letters in each row, reading ARISE, ROUTE, RULES, REBUS. The A, I, O, T, and L are in gray squares; the R, S, and E of ARISE, U and E of ROUTE, and U and E of RULES are in yellow squares, and the R of ROUTE, R and S of RULES, and all letters of REBUS are in green squares.
A screenshot of a typical Wordle game (#196)
Developer(s)Josh Wardle
Platform(s)Web
ReleaseOctober 2021
Genre(s)Word game

Wordle is a web-based word game developed by Josh Wardle, a programmer who previously created the social experiments Place and The Button for Reddit. Players attempt to guess a five-letter word in six attempts; feedback, in the form of colored tiles, is given for each guess, informing players which letters are in the correct position and which are in other positions of the answer word. The mechanics are similar to those in games such as Mastermind, though Wordle specifies exactly which letters in each guess are correct. There is a specific answer word for each day, which is the same for everyone.

Wardle initially created the game for himself and his partner to play, eventually making it public in October 2021. The game gained a large amount of popularity in December 2021 after Wardle added the ability for players to copy their daily results as emoji squares, which were widely shared on Twitter. Many clones and variations of the game were also created, as were versions in languages besides English; the game's popularity also led to a boost in downloads for an older game with a similar name.

Gameplay

Every day, a five-letter word is chosen which players aim to guess within six tries.[1] After every guess, each letter is marked as either green, yellow or gray: green indicates that letter is correct and in the correct position, yellow means it is in the answer but not in the right position, while gray indicates it is not in the answer at all.[2] The game has a "hard mode" option, which requires players to include letters marked as green and yellow in subsequent guesses.[3] The daily word is the same for everyone.[4] The game also has a dark mode as well as a high-contrast theme for colorblind accessibility, which changes the color scheme from green and yellow to orange and blue.[3][5]

Conceptually and stylistically, the game is similar to the 1955 pen-and-paper game Jotto and to the game show franchise Lingo.[6][7][8][9] The gameplay is also similar to the two-player board game Mastermind and the game Bulls and Cows, with the exception that Wordle confirms the specific letters that are correct.[10][11][12] Each daily game uses a word from a randomly ordered list of 2,315 words (out of the 12,000 five-letter words in the English language).[10][13][14] The smaller word list was chosen by Wardle's partner, who categorized the five-letter words into those she knew, those she didn't know, and those she might have known.[15] Wordle uses American spelling, despite the developer's use of a UK domain name; the developer is from Wales but resides in New York City. Some British players were enraged when one answer was spelled "favor" and complained that this gave US players an unfair advantage.[16][17]

History

Wordle 196 4/6

⬜🟨⬜🟨🟨
🟩⬜🟨⬜🟨
🟩🟨⬜🟨🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
The emoji grid copied by sharing the result from the game at the top of this article.

Wardle initially created the game for himself and his partner, Palak Shah, to play, as they "got really into" The New York Times Spelling Bee and daily crossword puzzle.[10][15] In mid-October 2021, he made it public after it "rapidly became an obsession" with relatives, naming it Wordle as a pun on his surname.[10] He had created a similar prototype in 2013;[18] the prototype allowed for endless play, with players able to play puzzles immediately after each other, and its wordlist was unfiltered.[15] Wardle previously created the two online social experiments The Button and Place when working for Reddit.[10] He has said that he has no intention to monetize the game and "It's not trying to do anything shady with your data or your eyeballs ... It's just a game that's fun."[19][18] In an interview on BBC Radio 4's Today, Wardle stated that he does not know each day's word so can still enjoy playing the game himself.[20]

The game became a viral phenomenon on Twitter in late December 2021, after Wardle added a sharing element to the game, letting users copy their results in the form of a grid of colored square emoji.[21][1][22][2][23][4][24] The feature was inspired by a group of friends from New Zealand who had found the game in late November and described their results in the emoji format.[25][15] Over 300,000 people played Wordle on January 2, 2022, up from 90 players on November 1, 2021,[10] a figure that rose to over 2 million a week later.[26] Between January 1 and 13, 1.2 million Wordle results were shared on Twitter.[25] Several media outlets, including CNET and The Indian Express, attributed the game's popularity to the dailiness of the puzzles.[21][2] Wardle suggested that having one puzzle per day creates a sense of scarcity, leaving players wanting more; he also noted that it encourages players to spend only three minutes on the game each day.[10] He also noted some subtler details about the game, such as the game's keyboard changing to reflect the game state, as reasons for players' enjoyment.[15]

Separately, an entirely different game called Wordle! by Steven Cravotta, which had been released on the App Store five years prior to Wardle's Wordle, saw a boost in downloads and purchases from people who thought it was Wardle's Wordle; according to Cravotta, between January 5 and 12, 2022, his game was downloaded over 200,000 times.[27][28] Cravotta was glad to see his game's resurgence, though recognized purchasers were likely buying it thinking it was Wardle's Wordle, and he has stated that in collaboration with Wardle, he will donate any proceedings of his game to Boost in Oakland, California, a charity providing tutoring to Oakland schoolchildren.[29]

Google created a special Google Doodle when one searches for "Wordle", with the site's logo becoming an animated game of Wordle to find the word "Google".[30] Twitter took action to block an auto-reply bot that replied to any Wordle result post with the next day's word to prevent players from being spoiled.[31]

Adaptations and clones

Following Wordle's sudden rise in popularity at the start of 2022, a number of video game clones appeared. Some of these clones revised the Wordle formula in novel methods. Absurdle is an adversarial version of Wordle where the target word changes with each guess; its developer, going by the handle "qntm", had previously developed a similar adversial version of Tetris called Hatetris, and like Hatetris, Absurdle was aimed to be the most difficult version of Wordle possible.[32] Other clones include one that used only four-letter swear words as its vocabulary pool, and another that let players change the word length.[33][34] However, on Apple's App Store, a number of ad-supported clones which did little to alter the formula, even borrowing the game's name, appeared in early January 2022.[35] Users continued to seek out other Wordle clones on the App Store, and by the end of that day, nearly all of the clones had been removed from the store, though Apple did not confirm whether or not it was responsible for their removal.[36]

Wordle was adapted into other languages, including Russian,[37] Dutch,[38] Spanish,[39][40] Catalan,[39] Galician,[39] German,[40] Urdu,[40] Hungarian,[40] Japanese,[41] French,[42] Portuguese, Tamil, Turkish,[40] Hebrew, Welsh[43] and Yiddish.[44] One Brazilian Portuguese adaptation, called Termo, had up to 200,000 daily players in January 2022.[45]

References

  1. ^ a b Astle, David (December 31, 2021). "Tips from an expert: How to solve everyone's favourite game Wordle". Sydney Morning Herald. Archived from the original on December 30, 2021. Retrieved December 31, 2021.
  2. ^ a b c Tech Desk (December 21, 2021). "Wordle: All about the viral game Twitter is going bonkers over". The Indian Express. Archived from the original on January 1, 2022. Retrieved December 31, 2021.
  3. ^ a b Lyons, Kim (January 20, 2022). "How to play Wordle". The Verge. Archived from the original on January 25, 2022. Retrieved January 20, 2022.
  4. ^ a b Carpenter, Nicole (December 29, 2021). "What is Wordle? A viral word game everyone's playing". Polygon. Archived from the original on December 30, 2021. Retrieved December 31, 2021.
  5. ^ Pisani, Joseph (January 19, 2022). "What Is Wordle? How to Play the Viral Word Game and Tricks to Impress Your Friends". The Wall Street Journal. Archived from the original on January 25, 2022. Retrieved January 20, 2022.
  6. ^ Brocklehurst, Harrison (January 4, 2022). "What the hell is Wordle, and why is Twitter full of people tweeting coloured squares?". The Tab. Archived from the original on January 4, 2022. Retrieved January 5, 2022.
  7. ^ Jackson, Gita (January 5, 2022). "Why Is Everyone Tweeting Their 'Wordle' Scores?". Vice. Archived from the original on January 5, 2022. Retrieved January 5, 2022.
  8. ^ Van Stam, Tom (January 5, 2022). "Woordspel Wordle is binnen een mum van tijd een van de populairste games ter wereld" [In no time, word game Wordle has become one of the most popular games in the world]. IGN Benelux (in Dutch). Archived from the original on January 6, 2022. Retrieved January 5, 2022.
  9. ^ Orland, Kyle (January 12, 2022). "Wordle and IP law: What happens when a hot game gets cloned". Ars Technica. Archived from the original on January 12, 2022. Retrieved January 12, 2022.
  10. ^ a b c d e f g Victor, Daniel (January 3, 2022). "Wordle Is a Love Story". The New York Times. Archived from the original on January 5, 2022. Retrieved January 5, 2022.
  11. ^ Barbaschow, Asha (December 22, 2021). "Wordle: It's Like Mastermind but for Words". Gizmodo Australia. Archived from the original on January 17, 2022. Retrieved January 19, 2022.
  12. ^ Astle, David (December 31, 2021). "Tips from an expert: How to solve everyone's favourite game Wordle". The Sydney Morning Herald. Archived from the original on December 30, 2021. Retrieved January 19, 2022.
  13. ^ Bram, Uri; Cardin, Nate (January 11, 2022). "The Two Best Ways to Win at Wordle". Slate. Archived from the original on January 11, 2022. Retrieved January 12, 2022.
  14. ^ "'Wordle' creator pleased with game's non-intensive relationship". NME. January 4, 2022. Archived from the original on January 5, 2022. Retrieved January 5, 2022.
  15. ^ a b c d e Holliday, Nicole; Zimmer, Ben (January 19, 2022). "Wordle's Creator Thinks He Knows Why the Game Has Gone So Viral". Slate. Archived from the original on January 25, 2022. Retrieved January 19, 2022.
  16. ^ Hassan, Jennifer (January 13, 2022). "Wordle sparks transatlantic rift as Brits denounce American English spelling of 'favor'". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on January 13, 2022. Retrieved January 13, 2022.
  17. ^ Blackburn, Jack (January 12, 2022). "Wordle puzzle provokes war of words with American spelling". The Times. Archived from the original on January 12, 2022. Retrieved January 13, 2022.
  18. ^ a b Wakefield, Jane (January 5, 2022). "Wordle creator promises viral game will stay simple and ad-free". BBC News. Archived from the original on January 5, 2022. Retrieved January 5, 2022.
  19. ^ "Wordle: why the inventor of the fiendishly addictive online game doesn't want your money". The Guardian. January 4, 2022. Archived from the original on January 4, 2022. Retrieved January 5, 2022.
  20. ^ Today (Radio programme). BBC Radio 4. January 5, 2022. Segment starting 1:24:43. Retrieved January 5, 2022.
  21. ^ a b Serrels, Mark (December 21, 2021). "WTF is Wordle? Everything to know about the new word game craze". CNET. Archived from the original on January 1, 2022. Retrieved December 31, 2021.
  22. ^ Lum, Patrick (December 23, 2021). "What is Wordle? The new viral word game delighting the internet". The Guardian. Archived from the original on December 31, 2021. Retrieved January 1, 2022.
  23. ^ Price, Renata (December 30, 2021). "Wordle Is That Square Grid Game You've Been Seeing All Over Social Media". Kotaku. Archived from the original on December 30, 2021. Retrieved December 31, 2021.
  24. ^ Devore, Jordan (December 28, 2021). "Wordle is a free word game that's just tough enough to be fun". Destructoid. Archived from the original on December 30, 2021. Retrieved December 31, 2021.
  25. ^ a b Cao, Steffi; Dahir, Ikran (January 15, 2022). "How A Group Of Twitter Colleagues Blew Up Wordle". BuzzFeed News. Archived from the original on January 16, 2022. Retrieved January 18, 2022.
  26. ^ Hall, Rachel (January 11, 2022). "Wordle creator overwhelmed by global success of hit puzzle". The Guardian. Archived from the original on January 11, 2022. Retrieved January 11, 2022.
  27. ^ Cravotta, Steven [@StevenCravotta] (January 12, 2022). "came across my app, also conveniently named Wordle" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
  28. ^ Stanton, Rich (January 17, 2022). "Older game called Wordle hits the jackpot, creator donates the windfall to charity". PC Gamer. Archived from the original on January 25, 2022. Retrieved January 19, 2022.
  29. ^ Sheridan, Conner (January 14, 2022). "He made a different game called Wordle 5 years ago and now he's donating the profits". GamesRadar. Archived from the original on January 14, 2022. Retrieved January 14, 2022.
  30. ^ Molina, Brett (January 21, 2022). "This is what happens when you Google 'Wordle'". USA Today. Archived from the original on January 22, 2022. Retrieved January 21, 2022.
  31. ^ Clark, Mitchell (January 24, 2022). "Twitter suspends Wordle-ruining bot". The Verge. Retrieved January 24, 2022.
  32. ^ Winkie, Luke (January 13, 2022). "Absurdle: the machiavellian version of Wordle". The Guardian. Archived from the original on January 25, 2022. Retrieved January 13, 2022.
  33. ^ Smith, Graham (January 11, 2022). "Absurdle is a Wordle variant that hates you - while Sweardle curses you". Rock Paper Shotgun. Archived from the original on January 12, 2022. Retrieved January 11, 2022.
  34. ^ Vincent, James (January 11, 2022). "Done your Wordle for the day? Try out these spoofs instead". The Verge. Archived from the original on January 11, 2022. Retrieved January 11, 2022.
  35. ^ Clark, Mitchell (January 11, 2022). "The App Store clones are here to profit off Wordle's success". The Verge. Archived from the original on January 12, 2022. Retrieved January 11, 2022.
  36. ^ Clark, Mitchell (January 11, 2022). "The Wordle clones have disappeared from the App Store". The Verge. Archived from the original on January 12, 2022. Retrieved January 11, 2022.
  37. ^ "В пандемию программист Джош Уордл от скуки придумал головоломку со словами" [In a pandemic, programmer Josh Wardle came up with a word puzzle out of boredom]. Meduza (in Russian). January 16, 2022. Archived from the original on January 16, 2022. Retrieved January 16, 2022.
  38. ^ "Student maakt Nederlandse versie hitspel Wordle: 'In één dag gemaakt'" [Student makes Dutch version of hit game Wordle: 'Made in one day']. RTL Nieuws (in Dutch). January 7, 2022. Archived from the original on January 21, 2022. Retrieved January 21, 2022.
  39. ^ a b c Biosca, Anna (January 11, 2022). "Wordle español, el juego online de palabras que ya suma 52.000 usuarios" [Spanish Wordle, the online word game that already has 52,000 users]. El Periódico de Catalunya (in Spanish). Archived from the original on January 21, 2022. Retrieved January 21, 2022.
  40. ^ a b c d e Deck, Andrew (January 21, 2022). "World Wide Wordle: What it takes to bring the viral game into other languages". Rest of World. Archived from the original on January 21, 2022. Retrieved January 21, 2022.
  41. ^ 株式会社インプレス (January 21, 2022). "Gekiretsu ni muzukashī, hira gana 5 moji de kōsei sa reta tango o ateru 'Wordle' ni no gēmu ga wadai ni" 激烈に難しい、ひらがな5文字で構成された単語を当てる「Wordle」似のゲームが話題に [An extremely difficult game similar to "Wordle" that guesses a word composed of 5 hiragana characters went viral]. Internet Watch (in Japanese). Archived from the original on January 21, 2022. Retrieved January 21, 2022.
  42. ^ Woitier, Chloé (January 14, 2022). "Wordle, le jeu de lettres qui a conquis les internautes" [Wordle, the word game that won over internet users]. Le Figaro (in French). Archived from the original on January 21, 2022. Retrieved January 21, 2022.
  43. ^ Morris, Steve (January 23, 2022). "Gairglo: cymhwyso iaith i ddatrys cliwiau" [Gairglo: adapting language for solving puzzles]. Golwg360 (in Welsh). Archived from the original on January 23, 2022. Retrieved January 23, 2022.
  44. ^ Palmer, Jordan (January 20, 2022). "Yep, we now have Hebrew and Yiddish Wordle". St. Louis Jewish Light. Archived from the original on January 22, 2022. Retrieved January 22, 2022.
  45. ^ Altino, Lucas (January 20, 2022). "O Termo: autor de versão brasileira do jogo que virou febre recebe até 'pedido de casamento' de fã" [O Termo: author of the Brazilian version of the game that became a craze even receives a 'marriage proposal' from a fan]. O Globo (in Brazilian Portuguese). Archived from the original on January 20, 2022. Retrieved January 21, 2022.

External links

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wordle&oldid=1067820001"