Showing all posts tagged: games
Wordle, a one word conversation starter
26 February 2022
In a time where there are perhaps few safe, neutral, topics of small talk — even the weather is off bounds in some circles — it’s reassuring to know that Wordle is something we converse about in most situations, says Amelia Lester, writing for The Sydney Morning Herald. Provided of course whoever we’re talking to is familiar with the word game.
That leaves one subject to carry us all forward through parties and get-togethers with people we’ve never met before, or whose names we can’t quite remember, or friends of friends we’re not sure whether we like. That subject is Wordle. The world hasn’t been so united since late March of 2020, when Tiger King gripped the globe. Why is Wordle entrancing? The reason must surely be: it makes us feel smart. It’s easier than a crossword, but scratches the same itch.
RELATED CONTENT
Wordle is not harder says The New York Times
18 February 2022
The New York Times, now the owner of Wordle, have confirmed they have not made the ever-popular word game more difficult. Anyone playing recently — game 242 anyone? — might’ve had cause to suspect as much though. No, apparently the game retains the same “solution set”, being some two thousand five hundred words, added by creator Josh Wardle last October. The New York Times has however confirmed the removal of “potentially offensive” words from the original solution set.
The main change that the Times made was to remove some words: the game’s new owners have removed some offensive language both from the list of valid guesses for the game (specifically, offensive language and slurs) and from Wardle’s solutions, in addition to removing some more difficult words from the original set (like “AGORA” and “PUPAL”).
If anything then, they’ve made the game easier, though Agora would not be too difficult for me, after seeing the 2009 film of the same name.
RELATED CONTENT
Wordle words for him and her
12 February 2022
Gender has an influence on vocabulary comprehension, and some words are more familiar to one gender than others it seems. For instance, peplum, tulle, bandeau, and taffeta are words likely to be better known to women, while milliamp, boson, parsec, and shemale (who would have thought), are generally more familiar to men.
There’s a few words on the chart put together by Yuri Vishnevsky I’ve not seen until now, but I’ve made a note of the five-letter words in case they pop-up on Wordle one day.
RELATED CONTENT
When will Wordle run out of five letter words?
4 February 2022
Fans of riotously popular word game Wordle need not fret — for now at least — about the daily challenge running out of five letter words. According to WordFinderX, there are over 158,000 five-letter English language words, depending which dictionary you refer to. That’s several centuries of daily puzzles.
On the other extreme, we are told there are a mere 5,350 words only available to word games. Even so, that makes for fourteen and a half year’s worth of units of language. Plenty of time to worry about what to do next. Let the fun continue.
RELATED CONTENT
Wordle bought by New York Times
2 February 2022
Word game Wordle, created by Josh Wardle, and hugely popular with — among others — the book-reading posse, plus one or two game developers looking for a piece of the word-game-gone-viral action, has been bought by the New York Times.
Created by a Reddit engineer and launched in October, Wordle gives players just six guesses to determine a five-letter word that changes every day. The soothing daily puzzle has become a hit since its launch, quickly attracting hundreds of thousands, then millions, of players. Social media posts about its game of the day have become ubiquitous, along with screenshots of the game’s distinctive grid.
Update: on the topic of Wordle “copies”, instructions for installing the official real version of the game, rather than an imitation.
RELATED CONTENT