A few weeks ago, I started noticing an interesting trend on social media. People were posting a grid of squares, colored green, yellow and gray. I was intrigued; I knew it was some kind of word game, but I wasn’t exactly sure how it worked. Finally, after seeing this for a couple weeks, I decided to try it myself, and I was hooked. This was, of course, the word game that has been taking the world by storm, Wordle.
So what is this game, and why has it become so popular? Wordle is essentially a word-guessing game. Every day there is a new word to guess, and no matter where you are in the world everyone is attempting to guess the same one. That’s what makes sharing and talking about it so fun. And with only one word per day, you have to keep coming back to keep playing.
Josh Wardle, a software engineer from Brooklyn, originally created the game as something for him and his domestic partner to play. However, once their relatives started to really enjoy playing it as well, he made it publicly available in October of last year. Later on, he added the feature where you can share your grid results, and the game became a viral phenomenon.
To play Wordle, you just need to utilize your knowledge of five-letter words. Wordle picks a word each day from a list of about 2,000 words out of the 12,000 five-letter words in the English language. When you start playing, you’re faced with an empty grid and a list of letters, giving you six tries to figure out the word of the day. Each time you guess a word, the game either makes letter tiles green, yellow or gray. A green tile means the letter guessed is in the correct word and in the correct spot. A yellow tile means the letter is in the word but in the wrong spot. And a gray tile means the letter is not in the word.
While you would think it would be easy to guess a five-letter word, especially with the game giving you hints with the tiles, it can actually turn out to be quite challenging. Sometimes you might guess several words without even finding one correct letter. Or you might get some green and yellow tiles but then have no idea how to put the whole word together. But after some thinking and troubleshooting, it’s really satisfying to get those five green tiles in a row, indicating you guessed the correct word.
The part of Wordle I find the most entertaining though is the social aspect. Once I started playing, I quickly introduced it to my sister, mom and dad, as well as my grandparents. We all enjoy playing Wordle at some free point during the day and letting everyone know how well we did. It can be a fun competition among us all to see how few tries each of us needed to figure out the word of the day. Especially when I’m at college, it’s a nice way to keep in touch with everyone and start up conversations.
So if you are looking for a fun way to challenge yourself and also build some more connection and competition with family and friends, I would recommend Wordle. You can find it at www.powerlanguage.co.uk/wordle. It just takes a few minutes a day, since you only have one word to guess, so it is great if you don’t have much time. The mental exercise of finding letters and figuring out how to put together the word is also very satisfying. Plus, having that sense of accomplishment about being the best in your group at that day’s word is a great boost for some bragging rights. So give it a try, just don’t say I didn’t warn you about it being addictive.
Connor Kockler is a student at St. John’s University. He enjoys writing, politics and news, among other interests.