Wordle: Those Green and Yellow Emojis
Photo by Brandon Bell
You have probably become either mildly obsessed with Wordle or mildly confused as to why everyone else is obsessed with it. But, if you have yet to hear of the phenomenon, and you have absolutely no idea what I’m talking about, Wordle is a daily word puzzle where you have six tries to guess a five-letter word. Letters turn green if they are the correct letter in the correct spot, yellow if they are the correct letter in the incorrect sport, and grey if they are not in the word at all. The emojis that you’ve probably seen are from the sharing feature on the website.
The Creation Story
According to a New York Times article, Wordle was originally invented by Josh Wardle for his partner, Palak Shah, who loves word games. For the first couple of months, the game was only played by the two of them, but after Wardle showed the game to his relatives and they all started to play, Wardle decided to release it to the public in October 2021.
At the end of January, Wardle released a statement about the wildly famous game: “It has been incredible to watch a game bring so much joy to so many.” However, he also said, “I’d be lying if I said this hasn’t been a little overwhelming.” Because of this, Wardle decided to let The New York Times start running Wordle. Wardle said, “I’ve long admired the NYT’s approach to their games and the respect with which they treat their players. Their values are aligned with mine on these matters and I’m thrilled that they will be stewards of the game moving forward.”
I Think I’ve Seen This Film Before
Wordle really reminds me of another game that I fell in love with. Except it wasn’t a word game. It wasn’t even played on the computer. It was a board game that my family got a couple of years ago called Mastermind.
Mastermind is really similar to Wordle except instead of a computer coming up with what you’re guessing, it’s another player. The player that is guessing is called the Codebreaker and the other player is called the Codemaker. The Codemaker comes up with a secret code of colored game pieces that is four pieces across, and the Codebreaker has ten guesses to guess the code.
I stumbled across a video that proved that lo and behold, Wordle was partially inspired by Mastermind. The video in question was an interview with Josh Wardle done by Marques Brownlee. Wardle talks about how the original version of the game actually used four-letter words just like Mastermind. However, Wardle says that when the game only had four-letter words “it just wasn’t satisfying.”
The Word List
Wordle has a word bank. According to Wardle, there are about 13,000 five-letter words, but a lot of them are not common words. The original version of Wordle used all of these words.
In order to filter the 13,000-word list down, Wardle actually had his partner play another game that asked if the player knew the word or not. With the new filtered list, the couple did some more filtering until the list was about 2,500 words long. The 2,500 list is the list that the current game uses. However, “you can enter any of the 13,000 words as a valid guess because they are valid five-letter words, but the answer will only ever be from that 2,500 list.” The list is randomized, and Wardle actually doesn’t know what the next word will be because he also wants to play the game.
The Wordle Cinematic Universe
As Wordle continues to grow, other games are starting to come out that are similar. Here is a list of a couple of them:
1. Nerdle is the math version.
2. Heardle is the music version.
3. Quordle is the version with four words.
4. Worldle is the country version.
5. Letterle is the letter version.
6. Dordle is the version where you essentially solve two Wordles at the same time.
7. Absurdle. I honestly don’t know how to describe this game. I think it’s just trying to be Wordle but as hard as it possibly can be.
8. Primel is the prime number version.
Winning Wordle
I haven’t figured out a way to win consistently at Wordle yet. There are various strategies out there, but for now, I’m not too stressed about it. I’m just kind of letting myself enjoy the challenge of Wordle, and if I figure out a winning strategy, I’ll get back to you.
