Some people wake up and execute a structured skincare routine, as Cassie did in Season Two of the iconic show Euphoria, while others hop straight onto TikTok. Me? I complete word of the day puzzles the moment my eyes open. Wordle has a hold on me and I’m thriving!
If you haven’t heard of Wordle, you must be from a different planet BECAUSE WHO DOESN’T KNOW WORDLE! But seriously Wordle was created by a software engineer by the name of Josh Wardle, who created the game for his SO originally. The public got word of it, and we (yes, WE) went insane! Each day, you are given six chances to guess a new five-letter word. You can keep a streak and look at your stats for how well you are doing each day (don’t want to toot my own horn, but average between three and four guesses HAHAHA).
The rules of the game are as follows: after you enter your first word, you will see gray, yellow, and/or green filled letters. The gray means that letter is not in the word of the day. Yellow means that letter is in the word, but it’s not in the correct placement. And green (WE LOVE TO SEE GREEN) means that the letter is correctly placed. The goal is to get five green letters within six tries. If you fail, you lose your streak, but it’s okay! You go back the next day and try again with a new word.
At the end of January, Josh Wardle sold Wordle to The New York Times and made a deal for it to continue to be free for public use. And while we are very thankful for this, I’m here about something else – a.k.a The Craze!
I’ve been recently made aware of a swarm of games similar to Wordle… but with more to offer. We have Dordle where you guess two words at the SAME TIME. Quordle is four words, Octordle is eight, Sedecordle is 16!! The same rules apply, but the more words you’re trying to find, the more chances you have to guess. Imagine trying to find 16 words with six chances at the same time… IMPOSSIBLE.
There’s Crosswordle where you’re given the word of the day and you work BACKWARDS! Games to guess the names of countries, popular songs, Pokémon; or even Taylordle where you guess words in relation to Taylor Swift, for example, ‘JONAS’ – oh how I wonder what that could mean…
Another one of my favorites is Semantle, but it’s MUCH harder. There is no limit to the number of letters you can use or the number of tries you have. You can guess ANY word and beside it will be a percentage. The higher the percentage, the closer you are to the word of the day. With over 100,000 words in the English language, it can be a little mind-boggling, but there’s a thrill and sigh of satisfaction once you finally get the answer.
The games have been never-ending and it brings me so much joy! It also helps with getting you to think outside the box, or even have laughing fits because sometimes the word was so obvious, but you forgot it existed. Wordle and all the games that have been created by inspiration have my highest praise and I highly recommend giving them a try.