During a long lecture, you start to feel like you’re going to go crazy. When will this be over? When will the sheets, readings, and work stop? You try to ignore what’s going on around you and pray that class will end soon. You scroll around on your phone or computer because you are bored and tired. Oh! Today, I forgot to do Wordle! Suddenly, the bleak, black-and-white haze you were in is replaced by grey, yellow, and green that are hard to look at.
Wordle has become a much-needed break after all the hard work you’ve done in all your classes. It’s exciting to try to find the five-letter word of the day in six tries, getting grey when the letter isn’t in the word, yellow when it is but in the wrong place, and green when it is in the word and in the right place. You have to go through so many five letter words having to remind yourself that some letters might be reused. Maybe this one will work, oh wait, it’s 6 letters. What about—this letter doesn’t belong in the word. Maybe-wait no, I already used this letter…but it could appear again.
Some of the best things about Wordle are how easy and simple it is to use. We can forget about our problems and stresses when we do something so simple and easy. It gives us a break—a break we need, a break we’ve earned, and a break that other things always take away from us. But Wordle lets us get it back. Wordle does not take a lot of time or hurt your brain. It doesn’t take too long or make us think too much about it. This is why Wordle is so popular and why so many people love it. It’s a fun way to start over.
Wordle is simple and easy to use on its own. It got my mind working to come up with words that fit the rules. A few months ago, I started playing it, and to be honest, there is no strategy. It is just luck. Sometimes you get fortunate and are able to decipher the word of the day, other days…no such luck. But that’s okay, because the point of the game is not to win but to try to guess the word. And personally, losing is always a great motivator to try and try again. I mostly play it in class when things get boring or when I don’t want to do the work. It is a welcome change of pace.
March 4 was a terrible day. My friend and I worked on that day’s word together. We thought about every possible answer, from “heard” to “wheat,” but we still couldn’t figure it out. We tried 5 different things (my friend did most of the work; he’s a genius), and now we’re left with “_head.” We tried hard to find the right words, wwhat? thead? Xhead? We didn’t know we could use the same letters until, finally, my friend told us. And it made sense. AHEAD! It’s all fun and games, but when I play the classic Wordle game, I always wish I had one more chance or word to guess. As soon as enough spin-offs came out, my wish came true.
Different people have shown their love for the game in different ways. Some people are satisfied with the game as it is, but others, like me, want more. People made many versions of Wordle because they wanted it to be easier, simpler, more fun, or just more Wordle. Many were based on what people liked, like Taylor Swift (Taylordle), Lord of the Rings (Lordle of the Rings), numbers and math (Dordle), and many more.
Sedecordle is a very popular game where you have to guess sixteen words at the same time in twenty-one tries. It sounds like a lot of work, and it is. Trying to figure out all of those words at once gives me a headache, especially at the beginning. But I did ask for more, and boy did they give it to me. As you get close to the end, things get easier. Sedecordle starts out as a game of getting rid of letters and putting them back together to make words that make sense. Even if it sounds like a lot of work, it’s fun and helped me waste time. I wanted something to last longer so I could get out of doing my homework (like I don’t already do that) by saying it’s good for my brain.
Wordle and all of its offshoots are basically the same. It’s a game where you try to guess a word that has a certain number of letters and only a certain number of guesses (except for the ones that were created for practice like Hello Wordl or WordGuessr). The only things that are different are how they are worded, how many letters are in a word, if you have to guess more than one word, if you have more or less choices, and if you even have to guess a word.
I think all of these games are great. Which ones you like will depend on your own tastes. You can choose whether you like themed or number ones better. I like both the original book and the Harry Potter Wordle (book nerd here). Each one is great and amazing in its own way, but they all have different themes and goals. I’d love to play them all and see how different they are, as well as waste my time, because who doesn’t like to put things off?
Wordle also makes us feel like we are all in this together, which is something we really need right now. The game is being played by millions of people around the world, just like you. A group of people have come together because they want to do something normal and simple. Wordle was exactly what we needed to bring us all together in a world that sometimes feels so far away. We all need to know that we’re not the only ones doing something, even if it’s as simple as guessing a five-letter word.
