A Word Away: The Newest Internet Gaming Frenzy 
by Zach Donaldson
There are many new tech trends that arise almost on the daily, as the world moves fast and everyone always wants the next best thing… But one that I want to take a look at is one that I personally have been riding the wave of recently – Wordle.
Wordle is an internet game currently sweeping the nation. By the start of January 2022, more than 300,000 people had played the game. Just one week later, that number was up to 2 million. Now in March, that number is most definitely much higher than that.
It’s a simple concept, but one that doesn’t sour. Wordle gives players six tries to guess a five-letter mystery word. When you guess the correct letter in the correct spot, it lights up green, and yellow when it’s in the wrong spot. Six tries would seem like it makes it easy to guess one word, but don’t be fooled, it can get tricky a lot of the time. Its layout is clean, concise and pleasant to the eye.
Like a lot of people, I started playing Wordle when I discovered it trending on Twitter about two months ago. I have a 100% success rate in 45 games played, not to brag, but I take pride in it. Although my streak is broken because I’ve forgotten to play a handful of days, I play on most and when I do it always brings me a little serotonin boost which is good for the soul. One could say, a Wordle a day keeps the doctor away! It also keeps your vocabulary sharp as well.
Oh, and there are no ads! Which just might be its best feature.
Wordle started out owned by its creators, Josh Wardle and his partner Palak Shah, who were both huge fans of word games. Part of the reason Wordle took off was because of Wardle’s idea to provide a built-in sharing feature that automatically curates an emoji block based on your results for you to Tweet or share. The share feature wasn’t originally included in the prototype, but Wardle added it on after high public demand for it.
Wordle’s massive success caused it to be purchased by the New York Times for a number sitting somewhere around seven figures. But many have said since the New York Times’ acquisition, the game has gotten harder as the words have become more obscure.
Additionally, many parody versions of Wordle have been made. The game’s popularity sparked copycats, per usual, but Apple lent the original a hand by removing all the frauds from the App Store so all the attention could remain on the real Wordle
However, there are also many free spinoff versions available on the Internet, each having a different theme. For example, Swordle, a Star Wars version. Or Lwedle, a inappropriate version. Or my personal favorite, Poeltl, inspired by San Antonio Spurs center Jakob Poeltl. In essence, it’s the NBA version of the game where you have to guess a player’s name based off a few hints that are revealed upon your guesses, as well as a silhouette.
It will be interesting to see where Wordle goes from here, and whether or not it dies out like most games like this tend to. But the thing with this one is, word games never get old, and this one is just interactive enough and has enough mass appeal to possibly stick around for a while.
Sources:
“Fun Facts about Wordle, Everyone’s New Obsession.” WordFinder by YourDictionary, https://wordfinder.yourdictionary.com/blog/fun-facts-about-wordle-everyones-new-obsession/.
Vaughn, Mischa. “How Wordle Won the Internet: Webflow Blog.” Webflow, Webflow, 15 Feb. 2022, https://webflow.com/blog/wordle-design.
“Wordle Creator Overwhelmed by Global Success of Hit Puzzle.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 11 Jan. 2022, https://www.theguardian.com/games/2022/jan/11/wordle-creator-overwhelmed-by-global-success-of-hit-puzzle.