Defend The Indefensible: Wordle

love wordle and only see it on socials a little any more.

Yeah, I've only ever shared a result a few times, but wgaf if people want to do it every day. It's better than seeing corny self affirmation graphics and other people's horoscope memes.

I play and enjoy, wouldn’t really think to post results on socials but I have a few Wordle pals with whom it is fun to compare experiences - feel a small dose of wholesome fun is allowed IMO

Was surprised when it was sold to the NYT for a “low six figure sum”, felt it was probably worth quite a bit more

I play and enjoy, wouldn’t really think to post results on socials but I have a few Wordle pals with whom it is fun to compare experiences - feel a small dose of wholesome fun is allowed IMO

Was surprised when it was sold to the NYT for a “low six figure sum”, felt it was probably worth quite a bit more

It’s an easy & fun puzzle to do over a cup of tea

The once-a-day release and the social aspect (plus the visual aspect of the squares &c) is the inspired part for sure, it’s been said enough times but during the pandemic these low-stakes communal experiences are particularly appreciated. Same goes for that spelling bee thing that I don’t play because not free (also I played a trial version and it said LING is not a word which anyone who’s ever done a crossword might have something to say about)

OP needs to get some perspective

what's psy op abt it?

i think its ok. what wins said about spelling bee, the creator of that needs a heavy punishment beating. most days

i will never take time from my busy important life to play a daily word game but i greatly like the way wordle's soothing untranslateable abstract pattern pops up to interrupt the relentless harshness of my war-torn TL its like visual ASMR from donald judd

Once I realized there was no skill involved, and heaps of luck, and few don't eventually guess the word, I quickly stopped playing. But I concede there's probably something soothing to that for some folks. Not everything has to be doing the Times crossword in pen with the timer going.

lest we forget (images lost to time):
mastermind, the game

^pvmic

played Mastermind a lot as a kid

anyway was coming here to agree with you all that Wordle hate is futile (and passe) in March 2022 but I did just see #WordleTheAlbum trending on UK Twitter so

Yes, let's reserve our hate for the Wordle Movie (coming spring 2024)

Sounds like a Pokemon character already.

I love Quordle and play it every day. So does my bf and my mom. Idk why anybody wouldn’t enjoy it except that they find people sharing their results tiresome, but it was fun the other day to scratch my head at JUNTO and Google “junto” and get back all these people on Twitter screaming “wtf is a JUNTO?!”

^seconded

It seems like the bulk of people came to Wordle very late in its run (the first time I remember seeing results shared en masse was somewhere in the 190s), so I have to imagine many of the most familiar words had already dropped off the list before people noticed it. I suspect it will be a very long time before we see a word repeated, but ones in common usage will be fewer and farther between until then.

I do find the copycats thing annoying as they spring up so quickly it feels cynical and like skilled people not busy enough in their job are just hanging around waiting for someone else to prove something is worth their precious time and effort. Ah wait this has kinda been my life MO minus the actual success and now I am too busy.

This garbage psy-op robot nonsense

look dude I understand not wanting to have any part of the latest trend but you clearly don't even understand what Wordle is

to be clear i'm not a Wordle "adherent" and i don't post about Wordle on social media - but it's really actually harmless

@ johnny fever are you suggesting that ..... we are running out of words after 200 games?

.....

Nope, I'm just guessing that Wardle, when developing the game, probably used a lot of commonly used words first before poring over his dictionary for stretching out the game's lifespan. NYT is still following the original game's numbering and wordlist afaik, so the words are only going to get more obscure before it circles around and gets easy again.

so its creator is called Wardle ffs

I feel this fact will have been discussed to death on corners of the web I've thankfully not encountered yet

some words that have already appeared as answers: rebut, humph, whelp, wooer, agora (last one removed by nyt). i'm guessing he randomised the list (of 2315 words, enough for over 6 years of gameplay), which was already had very obscure words filtered out by his girlfriend.

wooer some bullshit

Semantle is better

I like it because it's only once a day--it's impossible to develop the kind of addiction I have to internet Scrabble and internet backgammon. Half the time I forget to even check for that day's Wordle. I've done about 40--only got it in two once. I don't think I'd ever post on Facebook about it...though I do post Scrabble screenshots here and on Facebook.

It seems like the bulk of people came to Wordle very late in its run (the first time I remember seeing results shared en masse was somewhere in the 190s), so I have to imagine many of the most familiar words had already dropped off the list before people noticed it.

(xps & ledge has already got there first but)

I agree that this could happen (though have not paused to guess how many five letter words might be reasonably familiar to most people) but the 3rd and 4th Wordle answers were "sissy" and "humph"!

Can only imagine the reaction to those on Twitter now, "sissy" with a triple letter and a word I would not care to use in conversation unless very obviously joking, and "humph" right on the onomatopoeic word-or-not faultline (although I think it came up in Dordle or Quordle or Octordle recently).

(Yes I have been playing all 4 of these games lately; Wordle is a nice quick thing to do when you have a spare minute, and Quordle hits the a better sweet spot for actual puzzliness for me. Octordle is just too much, although possibly only because the UI is horrible and you can only see two of the words at once.)

Once I realized there was no skill involved, and heaps of luck

Half agree with this. One weird thing is that getting it in two (where's there's at least some reasoning involved) is more impressive than getting it in one (100% blind luck). I feel like I've used a lot of reasoning in the ones I've gotten in three and four.

I mean there’s the same amount of luck involved as other letter guessing games like wheel of fortune & hangman

xp yes, picking a second or third guess to eliminate as many alternatives as possible is definitely something you can do to improve on blind luck.

here's a few out of many non obscure words in the last 50 or so (apologies if anyone remembers this six years from now and complains about spoilers): hello, adult, rival, piece.

I'd say getting it in 2 is mostly just luck, though you can boost your chances a bit, and there can be a large amount of luck even with the 3s; if you're unlucky and/or don't pause to think through all the options you can lose, but most players will get there in less than 6 most days. So from the game design point of view Wordle is not perfect, but it's a fun enough pastime for a tea break, anyway.

And I admit when I see the green and yellow squares popping up I mostly think "nobody cares how many you got it in" (but yes, I've still talked about the day's puzzles online, so guilty too) but it's kind of nice to see the internet talking about something so harmless imo.

Working from home, I get to watch a TV quiz show called "Lingo".

This, basically, is the same as Wordle. Or so it seems.

I have not signed onto "Wordle" or anything similar, as the TV show is enough already.

(xp to self) Or, a month ago there were a lot of squares on my timeline and I'd think "nobody cares" but now there aren't so many, so when they do pop up it can be vaguely interesting to see if I can work backwards a bit to guess what word the poster started with.

(If I know them well enough to care at all what random words they typed into a webpage, which tbh is probably a stupid thing to think about at all.)

I just tried Semantle! God it is hard. I guessed the second-closest word on my 25th guess then spent my next twenty guesses on variations of that word instead of... something immediately adjacent to that word

Wordle is fine. I'm less interested in it now that it's on the Times website, and presumably will be paywalled soon. I still do them some days. It was fun when it was just a random web thing, sort of felt like a 90s internet throwback. I knew it wouldn't last that way.

I think its neat that it's a one-a-day thing and everyone gets the same word. the communal aspect of that is cool & I like that it only asks for a couple minutes of your day. watching Twitter bitch about a word like TACIT is kinda fun

Yeah, this. I don't post my own results on social media, but my wife and text them to each other every morning, and I'll occasionally chime in on someone else's Wordle post. I think it's a charming little game, with a charming little backstory, and it's charming that the dude got a million bucks from the NYT for something he made just for fun. Hard for me to see the harm.

my wife and I, that should say.

man alive otm

the original site's code was 100% client-side so you could just save the webpage to your computer and it would work offline for another 6 years until it runs out of words. i.e. it was made in a way thats impossible to paywall. the times basically just bought the name & idea.

My favorite thing was the pissy person on Twitter who scraped the word list from the code and made a bot that would post spoilers for tomorrow's word on everyone's results, I have never been irritated by something so much that it made me go out of my way to be an ass to people I don't know

i found the posts a little annoying at first, but now i don't care

I like it. It's like when people used to do the crossword on their commutes but now they do it before they start their day WFH

That person is a cunt but that was kinda funny, also the fact that they got banned within like a day - Twitter does have community standards! xp

yeah 100%

taylordle.com

Once I realized there was no skill involved, and heaps of luck, and few don't eventually guess the word

Getting the word is a given, the fun part is getting it in as few tries as possible imo.

I usually do it within a few moments of waking up, posting squares is lame though.

not skill but knowledge, the bigger your vocabulary the better obv

Wordle is mmorpg daily quests for boomers and the NYT ruling class. And that's okay.

I do wordle and quordle every night and have a running competition with my partner. It's become a midnight routine. Agree with a passing spacecadet that quordle is the copycat that feels like a real game and not a gimmick. Octordle is just ridiculous for the sake of it. And the quordle UI is good, they've gotten it so the whole playing board fits on your screen at once

I dislike the culture of secrecy-at-all-costs around wordle. People can get so weird about acknowledging any aspect of the word itself, even if it's like deep in someone's Twitter replies where no one would go if they hadn't already done the word that day. People will get weird when someone else types out yesterday's word. Can only assume this type of person is aroused by the inherent taboo of wordle

My streak stops for no union.

enjoy being terrible

You can play today’s word here instead of you like:


https://mywordle.strivemath.com/?word=ebwhc

i just had a look at phrazle, which is identical to worlde except it's a phrase not a word. you wouldn't know it from the instructions, which have been written by an a.i. or a moron or both:

As a logic puzzle game, Phrazle requires players to have excellent analytical skills. In Phrazle, there are no set rules for the open-ended play and format. You are encouraged to come up with your own rules or simply improvise. The key to winning the game is identifying word and phrase patterns. Four random words are given in each round's set. You have a certain amount of time to write down as many phrases as you can using these four words. The game will provide some facts before each round so you can guess the context. These won't affect how you play, but they can help you guess what other players are trying to do.

In fact, you will have six attempts to guess sentence patterns and phrases. Each guess must include only words that are legitimate and use all spaces. The color of the tiles will change to indicate how close your guesses are to the correct answer after each one:

💠 Green: The letter is in the first word and in the correct position.

💠 Yellow: Although it is in the first word, the letter is in the incorrect location.

💠 Purple: The letter is in the phrase but not in the second word.

💠 Gray: Letters are not in the phrase.

Tips And Tricks

In every game, the rules are one of the core factors that make the game attractive. With Phrazle we will give you examples to help you understand the rules and how to play better:

The word must have at least two parts. When you come up with a word to look up, simplify it and think of the words closest to you. For instance, a word like "fruit" has two components in Phrazle. The term "fruit" is what we often conceive of as a whole, while the word "u" is what we define in Phrazle.

Each word in a sentence must appear at least once. One of the most crucial regulations is this one. You're not playing the same round like everyone else if you break it. If you don't follow this rule, you can still use common words, but you must use at least one Phrazled word in your phrases.

Try using some of the more complex techniques you first discovered now that you are familiar with the game's rules. For instance, try flipping words or making sentences using synonyms or antonyms. Breaking the guidelines you learned above if you're seeking more complex techniques. For instance, you may still utilize Phrazled words in a sentence even though they don't exist in it. Likewise, you may employ synonyms for terms, such as "antidisestablishmentarianism."

Four random words are given in each round's set - no?
The game will provide some facts before each round so you can guess the context - nope
they can help you guess what other players are trying to do. - what other players?
Purple: The letter is in the phrase but not in the second word. or it might be in the second word but not in the first, did you think about that?
In every game, the rules are one of the core factors that make the game attractive. - couldn't agree more!
For instance, a word like "fruit" has two components in Phrazle. The term "fruit" is what we often conceive of as a whole, while the word "u" is what we define in Phrazle. - ok bye!

this is why the gods invented the well-breaker

― big movers, hot steppers + long shaker intros (breastcrawl), Wednesday, 3 August 2022 07:09 (eight months ago) bookmarkflaglink

breastcrawl - is this an actual term? Did you make it up? I was about to tell someone else 'I used a well-breaker' but when I google Wordle + wellbreaker I get nothing except this thread!

no, far from it - it was used further upthread, that's where I got it:

^this. I don' think I even have hard mode on but still usually play it that way most of the time.

I do use the well-breaker idea for the 4 and 8 word versions though.

― The Central Rockaliser (James Redd and the Blecchs), donderdag 31 maart 2022 17:12

oh! Didn't search properly.

yeah, i had to do a Wordle well breaker (enter a word that contains numerous possible letters to sniff out the last remaining letter that you need) for the first time ever to get today's

― Murgatroid, Monday, 28 March 2022 17:47 (one year ago) bookmarkflaglink

Still - not heard it outside of this thread.

@murgatroid?

I hadn’t noticed that term before but that is my default strategy

Hard Mode kind of makes the well breaker impossible, no?

Correct -- that's why I don't use it anymore, since I think wellbreakers make the game more strategic.

my second guess is always a “well breaker”

RIP alll the myriad wordle knockoffs, in foreign languages and otherwise

Strands has potential. I can't not do Spelling Bee, it's how I start each day. Connections is usually fun too. The Washington Post's Keyword is another piece of fun. I do Wordle pretty much every day, but it's rather more hit or miss than the other games I do.

why RIP? I do Wordle every day but could never bring myself to care about the knockoffs

connections is good fun

Yeah I really like Connections. Strands could be good, but I'll see how I feel after a few weeks of it.

why RIP? I do Wordle every day but could never bring myself to care about the knockoffs

https://www.shetnews.co.uk/2024/03/07/shetland-dialect-version-wordle-taken/

We’re still doing Wordle and recently added Connections to the daily routine. Tried Strands but not sure I’ll continue with it.

If you enjoy Connections you should try the Connecting Wall round of Only Connect (a load are here. It's the third round on the show, usually about 20 minutes in.

The main section of Only Connect is scary hard. Haven’t looked at the Connecting Wall bit since I started playing Connections. Maybe it won’t be too frightening

i lost an 85-day wordle streak the other day because I got busy and forgot to do it, which was annoying. i feel like it should be more like the crossword where you can keep your streak as long as you do it in order or as long you don't get stumped

unfortunate, but i'm okay with that

much better than losing a streak because you guessed

PATCH
MATCH
CATCH
LATCH
BATCH
and it turned out to be HATCH

My Wordle streak is a healthy 149 currently

Was low key obsessed with getting to 100

Now low key obsessed with getting my 3 guess stats line (69) out front of my 4 guess line (108)

Enjoy Wordle as the perfect vaguely engaged life background thing - esp as it is usually over in 30 secs (unlike Spelling Bee which can wreck an evening)

I still do Wordle and Framed every day. Cell Tower is a nice distraction if you've got time to kill - sometimes it's incredibly easy and sometimes you can get stuck for ages.
https://www.andrewt.net/puzzles/cell-tower/

I've got the Wordle in one TWICE and I aim to do it again.

I still do Framed and Wordle every day too - going it in a pals' WhatsApp group is what keeps the interest.

Also got World in one twice and have no expectation of ever doing that again, esp as I've mainly slipped back into a 'start with same word each day' routine (and that word has already come up)

Wordle, not World

I’m a big fan of Wordall: my main course after the Wordle starter.

Still do Wordle, Travle, Worldle and Connections. Wordall looks like a good one.

Nice twist to connections today

Yeah, enjoyed that although possibly a bit too easy?

our group started with fools as first word today ... looked like a terrible choice but was in fact very lucky choice

and connections was fun today as well

I am hating the Connections so much right now.

connections in part depends on learning how the author(s) construct the categories and also having cultural knowledge from growing up in the US. my wife didn't grow up in the US and gets super frustrated with some of the US-centric categories

not just US centric but often the double whammy of US sports *bleaurgh*

I'm USian and I have no idea what these emojis are supposed to be signifying! Ope wait a second okay I got there but it took me ALL the allowed errors.

I've been doing the Wordall every day - thanks Mike t-d!

they also sometimes seem to overlap with Wordle...?

Glad you’re enjoying Wordall; I’ve started tracking my average solution time, and I’ve managed to reduce it by three whole seconds this year! (Currently 2 mins 18 seconds)

not just US centric but often the double whammy of US sports *bleaurgh*

lol payback for everything I’ve needed to learn about cricket to understand a cryptic crossword.

It's only about once a week that I get thrown by a US-centric Connections category. Usually food or sport.