Wordle is a daily word puzzle game that millions of people across the world enjoy because it is both easy to play and difficult to master. As a means of staying busy and productive while waiting for the Covid-19 pandemic to pass, Welsh software programmer Joshua Wardle working in the United States came up with Wordle.
In October 2021, Wardle made the word guessing game available for free on his website, and it quickly went viral, with grids of grey, yellow, and green emojis popping up all over social media feeds. Still, what exactly is a Wordle? And what is it about this word game that has made it such a hit on the internet?
Here’s everything you need to know about the overwhelmingly popular online word-guessing game and how to play it.
What Is Wordle?
Wordle is a free, easy online word game that resembles classic color-coded code-breaking board games like Mastermind. The concept for “Wordle” is simple: five letters, six attempts, and only one word every day.
Yet, this online game has been causing a stir on social networks in the United States for the past few weeks, and it has even been adapted for a French-speaking audience. Daily, you'll have to use Wordle's 30-tile grid to enter five-letter words in an attempt to guess a mystery word.
Tiles holding the proper letter will turn yellow, green, or grey after the first guess, encouraging players to try again with words that include more of the correct or partially correct letters from the daily “Wordle.”
According to a New York Times article profiling the game's success, Wordle was conceived by software engineer and Reddit experiment designer Wardle out of a combination of epidemic boredom and a desire to create something truly novel.
Where Can I Find Wordle?
Due to the game's web-based nature, there is no downloadable software (though this hasn't stopped a few imitators from trying). Visit www.powerlanguage.co.uk/wordle/ on your mobile device or desktop's web browser to participate in the game.
There will be a new word to guess at once midnight rolls around. When I can't immediately think of the right word, I start a game, leave the tab open on my browser, and come back to it later.
How do I play Wordle?
How one approaches the initial, blank grid of squares varies greatly from player to player. For starters, pick a word with lots of vowels; eliminating those vowels will considerably reduce the available options. Enter your search term and press the Enter key.
Next, the green letters indicate those that belong in the correct position within the word, the yellow letters indicate those that belong elsewhere within the word, and the grey letters indicate those that aren't part of the daily word at all.
Keep in mind that you might not know if a green or yellow letter appears more than once in a word until you play the following word. For example, if you get a green “a,” there might be another “a” someplace else in the word.
However, make no attempt to enter AEIOU or any other made-up word; the game will respond with a “Not in word list” error if you do. Letters you've guessed wrongly appear in dark grey or black on the keyboard, whereas letters you haven't guessed yet appear in light grey, as shown in the image below. When the letters become green, you've won.
Why is Wordle So Popular?
Wordle's appeal appears to reside mostly in its simplicity, which is in stark contrast to the mobile and video games of frighteningly realistic graphics, notifications, and frenetic animations that saturate our current world.
Many users have loved the simple frustrations of a game that has only one, five-letter solution for everyone and can only be played once a day – rather than digested all at once – with millions of people now jumping to Wardle's site every day to predict each new ‘wordle.
Wardle told The New York Times, “It's something that pushes you to spend three minutes a day.” That's the end of it,” he said. As in, “Like, it doesn't want any more of your attention than that.”
However, the game's present popularity can also be attributed in large part to social media, with many players electing to spread the word by posting their daily Wordle results on sites like Facebook and Twitter, or simply by showing them to their friends.
After you've successfully or unsuccessfully guessed the daily word on Wordle, a “share” button appears, which copies the results to the clipboard so they can be put into tweets, posts, or texts as a succession of grey, yellow, and green squares.
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