Puzzle games are always a mixed bag with me and for a lot of people. The line that puzzle games have to thread is so hard, you have to make it challenging enough to feel like you are really accomplishing something, while also not making it too hard so people don’t get frustrated by it and quit. That is what makes “Wordle” such an interesting phenomenon.
For people who don’t know, Wordle is a word puzzle game where you have 6 guesses to correctly answer the 5-letter word of the day, and the rules are pretty simple. If you get a letter exactly right it turns green, if you get a letter right, but it is in the wrong spot in the word it turns yellow, or if you are completely wrong is stays grey. The simplicity of its rules, while also being engaging is what has made this game just blow up on social media. So while this is not a review of the game, we are just going to examine it, where it came from, why social media has just blown up over it, and what comes next after this while also talking about my own personal experience with the game.
One of the best things reading how Wordle became to be is about why the creator of Wordle, Josh Wardle came up with the idea in the first place. His partner, Palak Shah and him fell in love with the New York Times crossword and spelling bee, so during the pandemic he wanted to create something “that she would really enjoy”. I think that this is one of the major things that is at the root of why Wordle has become such an enjoyable experience for many people, including me. There is not an ulterior motive to cash out, make ad revenue, or any of the other things that you usually see in the ultra capitalist world that games live in. In that same New York Times article, Wardle comments on that “It’s something that encourages you to spend three minutes a day…and that’s it. Like, it doesn’t want any more of your time than that” That mindset can be seen throughout the design of it, the simple background (white or black depending on your settings), a 6x5 grid with faint lines, and a generic keyboard down at the bottom. Wordle respects your time, when a lot of mobile games in the space will send you notifications or make you spend money on extending your time, Wordle does the exact opposite.
So why has this game that was really created for just his inner family circle blown up so big. Well with it becoming popular among the family, Wardle decided to release it out to everyone in October 2021. I think that it comes down to 2 major reason that social media has taken hold of this game so drastically. The first one is pretty obvious, but was something that you could not do when it first got released publicly: share your results. Wordle did not get the share function that so many people love till about 2 months later from its original release date. Going back to simple, just pure enjoyment design to it, when you share your results there is no link at the bottom, just a grid of squares with 3 different colors in them with what number puzzle it was and how many guesses it took to get it right. For my own experience seeing this on Twitter, it took me a couple of days to figure out what everyone was tweeting about and it forced me to google what this was. That simple grid has become Wordle’s best marketing tool, better than any ad campaign could have been. It has become part of the routine of playing the game, sharing my result to Twitter and texting friends to compare notes.
The second thing also harkens back to the games design framework: You only get one word a day. There is no grinding for more words or challenges to get points for. It creates an effect that was super important for television shows till the early 2000s, it makes it appointment viewing or in this case an appointment game. When I see people tweeting their results, I immediately go to Wordle to get try my hand at the word of the day, knowing that everyone gets the same word makes you want to do better. Wordle has created feel-good competition between strangers without needing a leaderboard tracking scores. It has created a community of people using existing social media platforms that come together at different times throughout the day to take part in a shared activity.
After looking at the creation and present of Wordle, what could possibly come next. One of things that usually happens when something becomes viral on the internet has already happened to Wordle: copycats. Someone has already tried to create the exact same game and put it on the App Store, chock full of ads to try and create a quick buck off of the popularity of Wordle. For me personally I don’t anything to really change, Wordle has already achieved its perfect form. I would be okay for their being some kind of tip jar or Patreon set up to help cover any costs that the game is incurring on its creator. I would gladly cheap in a few dollars since this game has given me so much enjoyment all ready for free and it would help it stay ad free. Whatever happens in the future, because of the core that Wordle was designed with, I have the upmost faith that it will be fun.
Seriously if you have have not given Wordle a chance yet, please go do it. If you hate it, that’s okay it was only 3 minutes of your life, but if you love it like I do, it will bring you like it has a lot of other people some joy to your day and I think we could all use that right now.