A new Wordle.” “But I’m not even that good at the original.” “Didn’t you just write a piece called How to win at Wordle using linguistic theory?” he asked. So it felt inevitable, somehow, when one day an editor on the Saturday magazine, Will, made his way over to my desk. If a game is to last, it better be interesting enough for you to be able to play it a lot of times without getting bored And while the New York Times might own Wordle, it didn’t own fun. Innocent fun was back in vogue (not, I suppose, if you count the sweary spin-off, Lewdle). But regardless of the fate of his creation, Wardle seemed to have opened up new possibilities for enthusiasm and creativity. When the game was bought by the New York Times for a seven-figure sum, we all worried that its uncommercial nature might be under threat: so far, at least, it remains free to play. I wrote a piece on how knowing the sound patterns of English words can help you crack the game, and I’ve never been more in demand – admittedly the bar is low – getting requests to talk on radio shows around the world. I remember this ripple of delight reaching the normally sober newsroom where I worked: one day the Guardian turned over its entire morning conference – the forum where we discuss the (frequently grim) news of the day – to Wordle.
Key to all of them was a mechanism that acted as a counterweight to our hyperactive online lives: there was only one round a day, and the solution was the same for everyone. It inspired joyful imitations: Worldle, where you have to guess a country from its shape Emovi, where you have to figure out the film from a plot sketched in emoji. It spawned a Spanish language version, then Arabic, French, Swedish and Japanese. And, sure enough, by the end of the year millions were playing and sharing their results on social media. The game was never intended for public consumption – it was only after it became a hit on the family WhatsApp that Wardle began to think it might have wider appeal. It’s a simple pleasure: there’s a hidden word and, using powers of deduction, you have six attempts to figure out what it is.
App like wordify software#
Its creator, Josh Wardle, a software engineer living in Brooklyn, invented it that summer to entertain his partner, Palak Shah. Or, failing that, just something that doesn’t have its own designated horseman of the apocalypse. People are searching for reassurance, distraction. Just as life is beginning to return to normal for many, warnings of a sinister new variant spread. We’ve been through 18 months of grief, fear and disruption.
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