Wordle: What is it, and how do you win?

It’s a series of colored shapes, five across and likely four to six rows down. Or maybe you've seen a plethora of screenshots of random five-letter words. Whatever way you've seen it, your friends are doing the daily Wordle, and if you’re reading this article, chances are, you’re not. Wordle, a simplistic, free word game, has taken the internet by storm, with the game attracting millions of daily players, perhaps yourself amongst them after reading this.

Wordle, named after its aptly named founder, Josh Wardle, was started as a gift from Josh to his wife. He made it a game she could play daily, one of many products he churned out as a software engineer. The game has since swelled far from its love story origins, with the simplistic game recently getting snapped up by the New York Times for a handsome, seven-figure sum.

The objective of the Wordle is to guess the daily five-letter word within six guesses. After making a guess, the user will see each letter of their guess become colored. Green means the correct letter in the correct location, yellow is the correct letter in the wrong location, and gray/black means the letter is not in the word. Users have to get the answer right in six tries or fewer, which can often be a tough task. The words, all from the American English dictionary (a challenge for British users—e.g. COLOR and HUMOR) are often more complex in nature than normal, being vowel (ABOUT) or consonant (THINK, STARK) heavy, just to throw users off. 

In the example below, the correct final answer is PAUSE, shown in all green. To get there I made my first guess, HAIRS, with letters S and A being in the word. The S is somewhere in the word, just not in its current spot, making it yellow, whereas the A is in the word, and in the correct spot. The letters H, I, and R are not in the word, turning them gray. Based on this, I guessed [word] number two: SALON. I learned nothing new, as the L, O, and N turned gray, and the S location was still unknown. Guess number three, PASTE, yielded great results, showing that the P, A, and E were in the word and in the correct location, and through the process of elimination, indicated the S had to be the fourth letter. In my final guess, PAUSE, all five letters turned green, an indication I got it correct before I ran out of tries. 

The game, and my personal streak, should last until around 2029, based on the 2,500 five-letter words entered into the program. Far from that point, after only around 200 days online, the game has garnered a large, cult-like following. Despite its meteoric rise to internet sensation, the game has stayed true to its simplistic roots, sporting a simple design, no ads, no links, and no additions, less a share button. Sometimes, the best gifts are homemade ones and really do come in small packages.