By Mackenzie Edwards, Sports Editor
Gray, yellow and green squares light up the screens of millions of people every single day. Guess the word right, all the squares turn green. Guess wrong, and you have to go again. This encompasses the infamous Wordle game that has been gaining popularity.
Wordle is a word game that involves players racing against the odds to find a five-letter word in six guesses. It sounds hard, but don’t worry, the game gives you hints along the way.
If you guess a word with the correct letters it will show you a yellow square to let you know that letter is used somewhere in the word. Any letter that turns gray is not used and can be thrown away. Once all the letters all turn green, you’ve solved the puzzle.
If you don’t solve the Wordle correctly, you can try again tomorrow! The Wordle refreshes every 24 hours so players can play a different game every day.
Although it’s a big sensation now, it wasn’t always that way.
The game was created by Josh Wardle in November 2021 for his partner who loves word games. When it started the game only had 90 players. Since then, Wordle has had several changes and millions of new followers.
Wordle was bought by the New York Times from Wardle in February of 2022 for at least seven figures. This transition in ownership happened right as the website began to expand its users by the influence of social media.
Seeing influencers on TikTok and Instagram talk about the characteristics of Wordle helps persuade a large crowd of people to try it. From teens to grandparents, people of all generations play the Wordle.
You have to be quick about solving the Wordle, though, so you don’t hear any spoilers. Like with anything else, spoilers are a big no-no.
So what are you supposed to do when you’re done with the Wordle? Many spinoff games like Wordle have been created so people can play them while they wait for the next Wordle. A few of the variations are listed below.
Wordle Archives: Here you can play as many Wordles as you want. This website contains all the archives of the daily Wordle for all to play. So if you miss a day, you can play on Wordle Archives.
Dordle: Dordle is a harder twist on the Wordle. This variation gives you a split-screen wordle where you have six guesses to guess two separate words. Guessing one word will show up on both screens and show different results according to the words.
Quordle: The Quordle is very similar to the Dordle but instead of two screens there are four. Another advantage of this game is that it gives you a couple more chances to guess all four words.
Crosswordle: This variation of the Wordle gives you the final word already and you have to work backward to solve the words. You are only given the colors of the letterboxes and the final word.
Absurdle: This version is one of the hardest versions out there. You are given unlimited tries to guess the word, however, the screen doesn’t show any colors to see if your guess is correct. In addition, the word changes to try and make sure you can’t solve the word.
Hello Wordl: This version allows you to choose how many letters are in the word you are guessing. You can choose up to eleven letters in the word.
Heardle: The variation is a mix of the Wordle and Name That Song. It gives you one second of the intro to a song and attempts to guess the song title and musician. Each wrong attempt of skip gives you a couple more seconds to listen to. On your final and sixth try, the game gives you up to sixteen seconds of the intro.
Nerdle: The Nerdle is a math version of Wordle. The math is only the four basic operations and there are no parentheses used. You have to combine and rearrange the letters to make a basic equation.
Whether it is the Wordle or one of its many variations, you should never run out of word games to play. As the Wordle fad sweeps the nation, we may wonder if it’s here to stay. For right now, just remember to exercise your brain and enjoy the game.
ADIEU.
Junior Mackenzie Edwards can be reached at 23edwardsma78@daretolearn.org.
