The World of Wordle

THE

OF WORDLE

Amelia Brookes explores the creative spin-offs that have spawned after Wordle’s worldwide success.

If you haven’t already heard of Wordle, I’m sure you have at least seen a collection of little boxes filled with letters on your friends’ social media feeds. If you don’t have any friends (or at least not any on social media), allow me to introduce you to the puzzle game and late 2021 onwards phenomenon that is Wordle.

It’s a word-guessing game where you have six tries to guess the correct five-letter word. You start with any word that is five letters, and for each letter, you get a grey (which means the letter is not in the word), orange (which means the letter is in the wrong place), and green box (when it is in the right place). From there, it’s pretty self-explanatory. Recently, we have received many spin-offs and completely new puzzle games inspired by Wordle. Being the puzzle fan I am, I decided to review them, so here we are…

WORDLE: It’s a classic. I think the original Wordle is one of those puzzles that you do every day without fail for about two weeks - ‘Oops! I almost forgot to do the Wordle today!’- but then forget about it for another two months until it comes back around again for the nostalgia value. It’s nice and challenging, without any extreme difficulty. Plus, it’s fun to discuss with your friends in a way that you can’t do with Nerdle or Semantle because no one’s heard of them. A solid four stars!

QUARDLE: Wordle but make it four. This increases the difficulty level exponentially, and if you can get all four individual games within the number of guesses, you deserve to receive an award for either being a very adept puzzle solver or someone with an IQ of over 300. I suggest playing it like Wordle, focusing on one word at a time, and then using the clues you have gathered to guess the others once you have the first one. If you don’t get the first one… what can I even say? Three stars because it doesn’t have the same comforting energy as the original.

OCTORDLE:Wordle but make it eight. It’s a no from me. I knew it would honestly take up too much of my brain power, and I would have to go through the day with one remaining brain cell… Two stars, because I know that some of my friends love Octordle because it’s ‘fun’.

BARDLE: Wordle but make it Shakespearean. This game is for the English, Drama and Liberal Arts students, especially those who have a favourite Shakespeare character. I recommend playing it like regular Wordle, except you can use the word ‘thine’ (oooh, fancy!). Kind of a letdown though, because the final word is not usually a sixteenth-century one, so if you want a real challenge, you might be disappointed. Three and a half stars.

NERDLE: Wordle but make it mathematical. I don’t classify it as for nerds, as it just contains addition, subtraction, multiplication and division - so anyone with a calculator app could play this and do okay. It’s an interesting twist on the original. I give it as many as four stars because it is great to play in waiting rooms (and allows you to feel smart when you get the right answer).

By Amelia Brookes

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