Wordle, the new word on the street

What is Wordle?

Wordle is a wordplay game, which can be played on your phone or computer, although it currently has no app of its own.

The rules of the game are simple. The game is a 6 x 5 grid consisting of a word puzzle which you have to solve by guessing the right word, within six tries. Unlike a conventional puzzle, you can only lay out your five-letter word horizontally.

What do the different colours mean?

The letter blocks are split into grey, yellow, and green boxes. If all your letters stay grey, it means none of the letters you have guessed so far are in the actual answer. If one or more of your blocks are yellow, it means these marked letters are also in the answer, but is placed wrongly in your given guess. If any of your blocks change to green, it indicates that the letter is also present in the correct answer and moreover placed exactly in the right position.

Why has Wordle become so popular?

Each day, the five-letter words are chosen randomly. Moreover, there is just one same answer for every individual who is playing the game wherever in the world. This is because Wordle only generates one word per day, after which the user has to wait a whole 24 hours before the next day's word is generated. This effectively creates temptation and also scarcity.

Perhaps, and importantly, it has been able to create a virtual sense of community, where everyone has an equal chance of winning with the same number of tries. The fact that there are no ads, video pop-ups or premium models to the game only makes it more mass-friendly overall.

People have taken to sharing their Wordle results on Twitter, Facebook and even Instagram. The game's popularity has shifted from just about 90 daily players in November 2021 to 300,000 players daily in January 2022.

Who came up with Wordle?

Wordle is made by Josh Wardle, a software engineer who originally created this game for his wife, a big fan of word games. Wardle states he has no intention to make any changes to the existing game, and would rather keep the charm intact with the people wanting the game, more than the game wanting more people.

Where can you play it?

Visit https://www.powerlanguage.co.uk/wordle