One word, five letters, and a million dollars. Grid by grid, Wordle has taken our world by storm.
For those of us not yet pulling hairs over the online game, Wordle is a free daily puzzle in which players aim to guess a five-letter word in six tries. Each letter tile lights up green if it’s in the right place, yellow if it exists within the word but was entered into the wrong place, and grey if it’s not in the word at all.
Why we love Wordle
Behind the eponymous game is Josh Wardle—a Brooklyn-based software engineer who created Wordle’s first prototype for his game-loving partner in 2013 and named it a cheeky play on his own last name. Meant for the private enjoyment of Wardle’s friends and family, Wordle’s early version started with an unlimited number of plays per day, all five-letter words in the English lexicon (as opposed to today’s version that excludes archaic and offensive words), and absolutely no gimmicky features littering users’ screens or seeking to generate revenue—a trademark of Wordle that remains constant and much appreciated in its current version.
The game’s humble beginnings might just be one of the secrets to its global success. Lacking the usual eyesores of advertisements, flashing banners and push notifications common among traffic-hungry social media platforms today, Wordle’s interface is simple, pleasant, and inviting. It thus comes as no surprise that the game took off among an audience much wider than Wardle’s family and friends.
But the real, meteoric rise of Wordle came only after Wardle introduced the ability to share results in mid-December last year. In a tweet that first reached only the most dedicated Wordle enthusiasts, Elizabeth Scrivener, a public servant living in New Zealand, used green, yellow and black square emojis to mimic the Wordle interface and visually outline her puzzle-solving journey. Noticing the grids’ growing popularity, Wardle launched the result-sharing feature, flooding our social media feeds with the colourful squares and (literally) changing the game forever.
To say Wordle has become Omicron’s version of the quarantine banana bread may be a closer comparison than one might think. Quarantined within home offices and socially distanced gatherings, people have been seeking ways to connect with one another from the confines of their residences ever since the pandemic started. Sharing a camaraderie in winning our daily five-letter quests, or a common angst when we pull out all the stops and scrutinise our thesauruses only to find out the word of the day is as simple as ‘bread’, can help sprinkle our morning coffees with a dash of excitement, connection and accomplishment. Plus, we don’t even need to endure the manual labour of furiously whisking dalgona coffee or kneading sourdough this time.
The game’s one-play-per-day limit helps further this sense of satisfaction we achieve. Logging in once a day and completing our Wordle within a few minutes or so helps release dopamine without sending us down a spiral of unlimited plays and diminishing returns of satisfaction.
Wordle Woes
Yet, Wordle’s journey as an internet sensation hasn’t been all sunshine and rainbows. Its acquisition by the New York Times served as an official stamp of approval of its popularity and predicted longevity, but it garnered widespread backlash as well. Stating that the game would “initially” remain free to “new and existing players”, the New York Times’ move quickly prompted criticism from social media users. From concerns about the looming commercialisation of Wordle after this undefined ‘initial’ phase came to an end, to claims that Wordle had become more difficult, or complaints that winning streaks had been deleted, the world of Wordlers was ablaze with outrage.
Here’s the interesting part: none of these claims have been substantiated. Apart from a few deleted streaks that NYT apologised for, Wordle has remained free to all users and in fact removed archaic words like “agora” from its lexicon, making the game easier rather than harder. So what exactly has caused this inexplicit yet indelible, tangible yet obscure shift in the “vibe” of Wordle that we can’t quite put our finger on?
Though there may be no definitive answers to the fate of Wordle, maybe the answer lies in its simple beginnings that we first fell for. The promise of a constant token of happiness once a day amid unpredictable times, of a simple game that has well maintained its original premise of personal enjoyment without commercial motives, has perhaps been betrayed by an acquisition valued at a whopping “seven figure sum”. When it becomes difficult for us to trust our colleagues to complete their work behind the shield of a screen, and our friends to banter with us as easily as they did before the era of social distancing, the last thing we need our trust betrayed by is our favourite comfort game.
Personally, I’m just keeping my fingers crossed that Wordle remains the Wordle we all know and love. Here’s to keeping it _ _ _ _ _ (simple), winning _ _ _ _ _(words), and all-_ _ _ _ _ (green) rows on the first try.