What is Wordle?
It’s a once-a-day word game that went viral earlier this year. It only can be played on a website.
Who brought this on us?
Wordle was created by Josh Wardle, a software engineer from New York. He created a prototype in 2013 and dusted it off during the pandemic for his partner, who likes playing word games.
How do I play?
Wordle is simple: You have six chances to guess the day’s secret five-letter word. Type in a word as a guess, and the game tells you which letters are or aren’t in the word.
The aim is to figure out the secret word with the fewest guesses.
What changes has the New York Times made to Wordle?
A spokesman for the media company said it is updating the word list and removing obscure words as possible answers, such as “Agora.” It is also removing words that it says are insensitive or offensive.
Were people getting two different answers on the same day?
Yes, for Wordle game number 284 on March 30, there were two answers. The reason: A New York Times spokesman said the word “Harry” was nixed for being obscure and replaced with “Stove,” but some players still saw “Harry.” It said players should refresh their browser to see the new answer.
It’s the second time that has happened since the New York Times bought Wordle. For game number 241 on Feb. 15, some players saw the removed word “Agora,” instead of “Aroma.”
What do the green and yellow squares mean?
When you make a guess in the game, the letter tiles change colors to show how close you are to the secret word.
If you guess “weary,” and the “W” turns green, that means the secret word starts with a “W.” If the “E” turns yellow, the letter is in the word but not in that spot. Any letters that aren’t in the secret word turn gray.
Can letters in the secret word be used twice?
Yes. Knoll and Abbey were recent answers. The game won’t tell you if a letter you guess is in the secret word twice, unless you guess a word with the two letters in it.
Is there an app?
Nope. It can only be played on the game’s website.
But that didn’t stop others from making their own copycat games to cash in on the trend. Bogus Wordle apps filled Apple Inc.’s App Store, rising to the top of the most-downloaded charts. Apple said that it removed those apps.
Can I play more than once daily?
Some players have figured out a way to do that: They use the Wayback Machine, an online internet archive where you can go to Wordle’s website from past days and play old games.
This is a breeze. Is there a harder way to play?
There is a way to switch to “hard mode.” This means when a letter turns green or yellow, you must use those letters in the following guesses.
Whether this is hard or not depends on how you already play. Some already keep guessing words with the correct letters. Others, when they can’t come up with a word with the correct letters, guess with a word that has different letters.
To switch to hard mode, click the gear icon in the top right corner of the game and click to turn on hard mode.
I want to become a Wordle whiz. Any tips, tricks or five-letter words?
There is plenty of debate among fans on the best way to play. Mr. Wardle himself said he doesn’t know the best strategy. “You’re asking the wrong person,” he said. “I’m very bad at it.”
Avid players typically have a favorite first word they think gets them to the answer fastest. Two groups have emerged: those who type in vowel-heavy words first, such as “adieu” or “arose,” and those who go after common consonants with words such as “stare.”
Some have even created spreadsheets to figure out the most commonly occurring letters in five-letter words. One player determined that those are E, S, A, R and O and opted to use “arose” as his first guess.
Others just wing it and type whatever comes to their mind. If you’re looking for strategies, try finding a Wordle Facebook group like WORDLE Friends, where people are sharing tips, tricks and hints.
Another tactic in the first two guesses is to use words with completely different letters. The idea is to eliminate as many letters as possible quickly. For example, using “soare” as a first guess and then “linty” as a second.
If you want to spend more time researching strategies, the internet is full of them. On YouTube, one user shows you how to solve Wordle using a scientific theory. WordPlay.com grades how good your first word is, and will spit out second words to try.
How do I share my results?
After you finish a game, tap or click on the “share” button that pops up. You can then go to Twitter, Facebook or a messaging app and paste in your results to share.
Why are my Facebook and Twitter timelines a sea of green and yellow squares?
First, sorry about that. It is part of why the game has gone viral. The creator noticed fans in New Zealand were posting results with colored boxes they drew themselves. So he made it easier to share the results of the game.
What do the numbers mean when people post their results on social media?
When people post their results, numbers appear above the green and yellow squares that look like this: 208 4/6. The first number means the person played game No. 208. Each day, a new game gets a new number. And the “4/6″ indicates the person guessed four times before guessing the word of the day correctly. The “6″ represents the six guesses players have. An X/6 means the player lost.
How did Wordle go viral?
Mr. Wardle said the game started to take off in mid-November, when technologist Andy Baio put a link to the game in his blog. Mr. Wardle then made it easy to share results by posting the green and yellow squares on Facebook, Twitter and texting apps, and the game went viral from there.
“The Tonight Show” host Jimmy Fallon has tweeted repeatedly about the game, helping fuel its popularity.
What should I do after I play Wordle?
The Wordle obsession is pushing people to rediscover decades-old games they played as children. Some are searching their homes for forgotten board games, such as Mastermind, or downloading apps based on them, such as Jotto.
Is a word game show coming to TV?
Yes. CBS is reviving the game show “Lingo,” where teams of two have to guess words after being given the first letter.
CBS didn’t mention Wordle in its February announcement, but alluded to the country’s recent obsession with word games.
“Everyone’s looking for a five letter word, we’ve got one…“Lingo,” CBS said in a tweet.
The show will air sometime in 2022 and be hosted by RuPaul Charles, the host of competition drag show “RuPaul’s Drag Race.”
Wordle made it on “Saturday Night Live”?
Yes. It was featured in a sketch on the Jan. 22 episode, featuring James Austin Johnson, who impersonates former President Donald Trump. Mr. Johnson’s Trump goes on a long-winded speech about booster shots, actor Jason Momoa and other unrelated things, filling up the Wordle game with words. In the end, the Wordle answer was “Trump.”
How many people are playing?
When the New York Times bought Wordle, it said millions play it, but didn’t give an exact number. That’s a big increase from Nov. 1, 2021, when 90 people played the game, according to Mr. Wardle. He said some 1.8 million people played it on Jan. 7.
Why is it just once a day?
The once-daily aspect also helped the game go viral. Since everyone in the world gets the same Wordle game at midnight in their time zone, it enables players to talk to each other about how they did and what guesses they made.
“It becomes a shared experience,” Mr. Wardle said.
Why is Buffalo Wild Wings tweeting about Wordle?
Brands can’t resist jumping on a viral trend. It is a way to join the conversation and gain followers and likes. The chicken-wing chain turned the game into a series of five-letter words: Order. Wings. Today.
Lego reimagined Wordle with its colorful bricks. IKEA saw the game in one of its shelving units.
London-based Starling Bank Ltd. used Wordle’s squares to tease its rivals on Twitter and proclaim itself the best British bank.
Are famous people playing it?
Yes. Musician Questlovetweeted that he was “legit amped” after solving his first Wordle puzzle. Mr. Fallon from “The Tonight Show” tweeted in early January to his 51 million followers he was “addicted” to the game. Three days later the comedian tweeted that he was “still hooked.”
I am colorblind. Is there a way to play?
There is a “colorblind mode” that switches the correct guesses from green and yellow to orange and blue, colors that are easier to tell apart for people with color blindness. Click the gear icon in the top right corner of the game and click on colorblind mode to change it.
Anything else I should know?
Yes. Several Wordle spoofs and variations have popped up. For geography buffs, there is Worldle, where you’re shown an outline of a country and you have to guess the locale. If you can navigate the New York City subway system without a map, try Subwaydle, which asks you to figure out the best subway lines to get to a destination.
You can try to guess the letter of the day on Letterle. Or there is Sweardle for naughtier words if that is your thing. When you guess the right four-letter word, the site tells you, “I’m sure your mother will be very proud.”
Download
the App to get 14 days of unlimited access to Mint Premium absolutely free!
