Everything You Need To Know About WORDLE

If you’re wondering why yellow and grey boxes are popping up all over your social media feed, then read on. We explain everything you need to know about WORDLE and why it’s taking the world by storm.

Wordle is a daily word game you can find online here. Just like a crossword, it’s fun, simple and can only be played once a day. Every 24 hours there’s a new word of the day, and it’s up to you to figure out what it is. The site explains the rules of the game simply:

“Wordle gives players six chances to guess a randomly selected five-letter word. As shown above, if you have the right letter in the right spot, it shows up green. A correct letter in the wrong spot shows up yellow. A letter that isn’t in the word in any spot shows up gray.

You can enter a total of six words, meaning you can enter five burner words from which you can learn hints about the letters and their placements. Then you get one chance to put those hints to use. Or you can try for performance and guess the word of the day in three, two or even one go.”

How utterly simple and yet so compelling!

Let’s gooo
⬜⬜?⬜?
??⬜??
?????

Wordle 183 3/6

— Paul is Happening (@paulpuccio) December 20, 2021

According to the New York Times, over 300,000 people play it daily. But why, you may ask is everyone so obsessed with such a simple word game? There are a couple of reasons behind it’s success:

There’s only one puzzle per day

It’s completely doable and gives you something to look forward to each day, something to challenge and motivate you.

Everyone is playing the exact same puzzle

It’s always fun to share experiences with friends and ask, “Today’s was tough!” “How did you get on?” “Did you get it?”

It’s easy to share your results

Once the puzzle is completed you’re then able to share your results as well as keep track of how well you’re doing. A bit of friendly competition never killed anybody, right?

Interestingly enough, the game was released by Josh Wardle, the inventor, back in October, but it didn’t go viral until he added an update, inspired by one of the game’s users. What was the update? Simple…a black screen with 30 empty boxes This letter-less way of posting your results allows people to talk about the game without spoiling it for others —  a universal language of white, yellow and green.

Perhaps a game like Wordle is what the world needs right now. As we enter our third year of a global pandemic, it’s nice to have a daily distraction we can all share simultaneously. And if we don’t do well on the word puzzle one day, at least we know there’s always tomorrow!

Images: Wordle and Twitter