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Who created Wordle? Latest word game to sweep through Internet was born out of love

Although the game has been around for 200 years, it has really only gotten viral over the past week

Have you wondered why your Twitter feed is covered with green and yellow squares in what looks like a crossword puzzle? It is because the online game Wordle is the latest sensation on the internet. 

If you have not heard about the game yet, it is basically a simple word game with one puzzle, which remains the same for everyone and can be played daily. So all one needs to do is guess a single word. The player gets six tries to get it right. As simple as that. Although the game has been around for 200 years, it has really only gotten viral over the past week. Since the puzzle is the same for everyone, it is a great way to compare your skills directly with someone else. Since guessing a five-letter word with such a limited number of tries might be difficult for many people, Wordle helps its players with a color-coded system.

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Who created Wordle?

Josh Wardle, a Brooklyn-based software engineer, created the game. Talking to the New York Times, Wordle said the game was made for his partner Palak Shah, who loves word games. Wordle was created as a guessing word game just for the couple. The name is a wordplay on his own surname.

The game was never meant for a formal release to the world. However, he noticed that it was a hit among others, especially in their family’s group chat and among relatives. “I think people kind of appreciate that there’s this thing online that’s just fun,” Wardle told the newspaper. “It’s not trying to do anything shady with your data or your eyeballs. It’s just a game that’s fun.”

According to NYT, Wardle did not get it right on the first try. He had developed a similar prototype of the game in 2013. However, as it left his friends unimpressed at the time, he scrapped the idea. When the pandemic began in 2020, Shah “got really into” Spelling Bee and the daily crossword, “so I wanted to come up with a game that she would enjoy,” he said. “It’s something that encourages you to spend three minutes a day,” Wardle said. “And that’s it. Like, it doesn’t want any more of your time than that.”

How to play Wordle?

In order to play the game, you have to just access a simple link to a website, since there is no app as such. The gamer takes turns to fill out the boxes with any random 5-letter word. Once a player guesses a word, the letters of your guess either turn green, yellow, or gray. For every correct guess, the box turns green if the right alphabet is in the correct place; it turns yellow if the alphabet is correct but the position is wrong. If the letter is gray, the letter does not appear at all within the day’s word.

As a result, the game points the players to the right word without giving it away. If you are feeling confidant, you can also turn on hard mode. It forces the players to use the hints they’re given, stopping one from guessing words at random.