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Twitter’s most recent fad, Wordle, has been making waves for a couple of months now. Since October 2021, its user base has exponentially increased, and right now, it’s impossible to browse Twitter without bumping into someone else’s results for the daily puzzle. Everyone is playing.
According to Josh Wardle, its creator, Wordle was only imagined as a side-project to his software engineer job. However, the game slowly and steadily became 2022’s first viral phenomenon. Now that Wardle himself announced The New York Times has bought the game, things are bound to change. People are wondering if the game will fade into oblivion or if it will become even more successful in the future.
11 Who’s Josh Wardle, Wordle’s Creator?
Wordle was created by Josh Wardle, a Welsh software engineer with experience in Silicon Valley. The game, which was released in October 2021, was on Wardle’s mind since 2013, and he even worked on a prototype at the time. It had major differences, but the goal was the same. However, he let the idea go when it didn’t land well among his friends.
Although Wardle is currently known for Wordle, this word game isn’t his first dab on viral internet phenomena. The 38-year-old man previously worked as a software engineer for Reddit, so he was very involved with the website. He’s responsible for two of Reddit’s most famous projects: The Button and Place.
10 Wardle Has Gone Viral Before
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Before Wordle, Josh Wardle created The Button and Place. The Button was less of a game and more of a social experiment. It featured an online button with a 60-second countdown that reset each time the button was pressed. The idea was to collectively prevent the countdown from reaching zero by pressing the button. Over a million users managed this for two months, until June 5, 2015.
Place was a collaborative project featuring an online 1000×1000 canvas that allowed users to modify it pixel by pixel, creating a cooperative art piece that changed in real-time. According to official records, Place’s pixels were painted over 15 million times. Now the final version is available in the project’s subreddit.
8 The Game Is A Gift For Wardle’s Girlfriend
According to Wardle, Shah played other word games such as the NYT Crossword and Spelling Bee so he wanted to create something she would enjoy. Fortunately for Wordle fans out there, they decided to share it. Once it became more of a public affair, Wardle and Shah worked together to refine some details, such as the word library for the game, which right now includes a list of around 2,500.
7 It Aims To Remind You Of The Old Internet Times
Since the game was only a secondary project for Josh Wardle, he didn’t consider monetizing it, so Wordle doesn’t have any ads or other applications trying to steal user information. About this, Wardle himself commented that “it’s not trying to do anything shady with your data or your eyeballs. It’s just a game that’s fun.”
In addition to this, the game doesn’t demand anything from its users but a couple of minutes a day. Wordle doesn’t require an account and it doesn’t send emails or annoying notifications. It’s a game that reminds its users of a time when the internet wasn’t catered to money-making.
6 Its Structure Has Been Used Before
Even though Josh Wardle has everyone playing Wordle, this game doesn’t have an all-new dynamic. Before Wordle became a stratospheric success, an analog version of this game was created by Morton M. Rosenfeld in 1955 called Jotto. This is a two-player game where each player picks a secret five-letter word and the other one has to guess it, using position-based hints, like in Wordle.
30 years later, the American television show Lingo explored the same structure, in which contestants took turns guessing on the same 5×5 grid for a chance to win up to $64,000. In addition to these two identical setups, there’s a board game called Mastermind created by Mordecai Merowitz, which includes a color-based code that players must guess in a limited amount of turns.
5 Not To Be Confused With Wordle!
Five years before Wordle became a viral phenomenon, American developer Steven Cravotta created an entirely different game named Wordle!, released on the App Store. After Wardle’s Wordle became successful, confused users purchased Cravotta’s game, which was downloaded over 200,000 times in the first weeks of January.
Although Cravotta was glad to see his game getting a second wind, he was also aware of the confusion. To avoid further problems with Wardle, both men agreed to donate any proceeds from the Wordle! app to Boost, a charity in California that provides tutors to Oakland’s children.
4 It’s So Famous It Has Gotten Haters
Of course, as it always happens when something reaches a certain level of popularity, Wordle also has haters. Given that most players share their results on Twitter, there are moments of the day when any given user’s timeline is overflowing with grey, yellow and green squares. Because of this, many users on this social network have expressed their discontent at the Wordle spam.
While some of them are happy just complaining, others go the extra mile. Recently, Wordle users found themselves fearing @wordlinator, a bot designed to reply to Wordle score tweets with the answer for the next day’s puzzle. This rude account, which takes advantage of the public Wordle files, was promptly banned by Twitter.
3 New Versions Pop Up Everyday
In a time and age where binging is the rule, Wordle’s one puzzle per day tradition has everyone looking for alternatives. Fortunately, since the game was first released, many other versions of this puzzle have appeared on the internet. Some of them allow users to play as many times as they want, just like other famous mobile games do. Other Wordle clones, however, seek to internationalize the game.
So far, the game has been adapted into around 50 languages, including Spanish, Polish, and French, or even languages that don’t use the Latin alphabet, like Japanese and Chinese — of course, these versions have been slightly modified to attend to these language’s particularities. What’s more, other topic-specific clones have been created, like Lordle of The Rings, which only includes words about the Tolkien saga, or Lewdle, which only includes vulgar words.
2 Science Says It’s Good For The Brain
So far, Wordle has managed to create a community on Twitter. Many users have commented that the game is the perfect excuse to keep in touch with friends and family on a daily basis. In fact, it even helped a woman to rescue her mother from QAnon. But, in addition to this, scientists believe Wordle helps keep the brain active.
Not only Wordle, but other logic puzzles like Sudoku, Words With Friends, and crossword puzzles, stimulate the players’ brains. When thinking of the brain as a muscle, these games serve as a workout. As players work out the brain, more connections are built and this increases cognitive function, which prevents Alzheimer’s and Dementia.
1 It Will Join The Other NYT Games Soon
In early February 2022, the New York Times announced they acquired Wordle for a price “in the low seven figures.” With this purchase, Wordle becomes the newest member of The New York Times Games, alongside its famous crossword, Spelling Bee, Letterboxed, and Sudoku.
Josh Wardle himself commented on these company’s values as the perfect match for Wordle‘s success. However, many Twitter users complained about this purchase. Given that the NYT is a subscription-based service, there’s a big chance Wordle will stop being free in the Near future. Only time will tell.
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