Wordle is distracting everyone in 2022 – but what is it?
If you’re spotting posts on social media that feature green and white dots, Wordle is responsible.
Created by Josh Wardle back in 2013 as a side-project, Wordle was revived in 2020 as a way for him and his partner to play each day during the pandemic. In three months since he made the game public in November, it’s amassed more than 300,000 players playing daily.
Its ubiquity is in its simplicity. There’s no mobile app to download from Apple’s App Store or Google’s Play Store, there’s only a website and a way to share your results on social media.
If you fancy having a go yourself to see what all the fuss is about, here’s how to play the game each day if you’re curious to jump in and have a go.
How do you play Wordle?
Every day at midnight, a new word is posted on the site, where you need to guess the five-letter word in six tries or less. If you type in a word that features yellow colors, these are correct but in the wrong order. However, letters highlighted in green are correct and in the right order, so you can attempt to guess the word in other tries, with keeping the letters that are green in the same place.
(Image credit: Future)
Thanks to your web browser, Wordle will remember your streak for however long you guess the correct word. You can also share this to your social site of choice in the form of a grid, to show your friends how quickly you figured out today’s word.
Wordle 201 4/6🟨⬛⬛🟨⬛⬛🟩🟩⬛⬛🟩🟩🟩⬛⬛🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩January 6, 2022
Plans for the future?
Wardle has no current plans to make Wordle chargeable, telling BBC Radio 4 Today (at 1:26:40) that he sees no need for it. “I’m not making money from it; there are no ads, no plans to monetize. I don’t intend to. Why can’t something just be fun?”
But there are 2,500 words that have been organized by Wardle to appear in the game each day, after looking at all of the five-letter words in the dictionary, and whittling them down. As they’re randomized, Wardle doesn’t know which word is coming next.
So far it’s an addictive game, but time will tell if it’s still a game we’ll be playing by the end of the year, or whether we’ll see Wordle evolve into its own app.
