Wordle web-based word game created

 Wordle is a web-based word game created and developed by the Welsh software engineer Josh Wardle. In the game, players have six attempts to guess a five-letter word, receiving feedback through colored tiles that indicate correct letters and their placement. A single puzzle is released daily, with all players attempting to solve the same word. It was inspired by word games like Jotto and the game show Lingo.

Originally developed as a personal project for Wardle and his partner, Wordle was publicly released in October 2021. It gained widespread popularity in late 2021 after the introduction of a shareable emoji-based results format, which led to viral discussion on social media. The game's success spurred the creation of numerous clones, adaptations in other languages, and variations with unique twists. It has been well-received, being played 4.8 billion times during 2023.

The New York Times Company acquired Wordle in January 2022 for a "low seven-figure sum".[1] The game remained free but underwent changes, including the removal of offensive or politically sensitive words and the introduction of account logins to track stats. Wordle was later added to the New York Times Crossword app and accompanied by WordleBot, which gave players analysis on their gameplay. In November 2022, Tracy Bennett became the game's first editor, refining word selection and occasionally aligning puzzle words with holidays.

Gameplay

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A four-row grid of white letters in coloured square tiles, with 5 letters in each row, reading ARISE, ROUTE, RULES, REBUS. The A, I, O, T, and L are in grey squares; the R, S, and E of ARISE, U and E of ROUTE, and U and E of RULES are in yellow squares, and the R of ROUTE, R and S of RULES, and all letters of REBUS are in green squares.
Wordle #196 solved in 4 guesses
Text saying "Wordle 196 4/6", followed by four lines of five emoji boxes each: white, yellow, white, yellow, yellow; green, white, yellow, white, yellow; green, yellow, white, yellow, green; green, green, green, green, green.
The emoji grid copied by sharing the result from the Wordle game. In text form:
Wordle 196 4/6
⬜️🟨⬜️🟨🟨
🟩⬜️🟨⬜️🟨
🟩🟨⬜️🟨🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Every day, a new five-letter word is chosen, and players attempt to guess it within six tries.[2] After each guess, the letters are color-coded to indicate their accuracy: green means the letter is correct and in the right position, yellow means it is in the word but in the wrong position, and gray means it is not in the word at all.[3][4] If a guessed word contains multiple instances of the same letter—such as the "o"s in "robot"—those letters will be marked green or yellow only if the answer also contains them multiple times; otherwise, extra occurrences will be marked gray.[5]

Each day's answer is drawn from a curated list of 2,309 words.[6] Wordle follows American spelling conventions, which has led to complaints from non-US players about a potential disadvantage (e.g., the use of "favor" rather than the non-US "favour").[7][8] The game includes a "hard mode" option, which requires players to use any revealed green or yellow letters in subsequent guesses.[9] The daily word is the same for all players worldwide.[10] Additionally, the game offers both a dark theme and a high-contrast mode for colorblind accessibility, replacing the standard green and yellow color scheme with orange and blue.[9][11]

Conceptually and stylistically, the game is similar to the 1955 pen-and-paper game Jotto and the game show franchise Lingo.[12][13] The gameplay is also similar to the two-player Word Mastermind variety of the board game Mastermind [14][15]—and the game "Bulls and cows", with the exception that Wordle confirms the specific letters that are correct.[16][17][18]

According to data collected by The New York Times, the most common first guesses are "adieu", "audio", "stare", "raise", and "arise".[19][20] However, it was found that starting words such as "adieu" and "audio" may put people at a disadvantage as it takes more attempts for people to solve than if they start with words such as "slate", "crane", and "trace".[21] Computer algorithms can consistently solve the puzzle within five of the six allowed guesses.

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