We’ve all seen it by now. The little green and yellow blocks filling up our Twitter timelines, group chats, and message boards. It’s not some weird morse code, it’s just everyone showing off their scores on Wordle. This free-to-play word game has over social media and everyone’s daily discussions as they all compare how quickly they solved the most recent puzzle. There is a serious conversation surrounding this game that we don’t often see. Entire communities gleefully share their scores with one another while not spoiling the word for anyone who hasn’t played yet. It’s fun, unique, and an example of how when something really wholesome comes together the internet can make it a truly great thing.
It also growing so incredibly fast that there are still people that don’t know what it is yet. The game first started to gain traction before the new year, but early into 2022 it exploded into the game that everyone was talking about on social media. Growth that quick can make anyone that’s in on it feel special and those of us who missed it feel left out. Well, don’t worry, because you’re not the only one. A lot of us are still just learning what Wordle is, why exactly it’s so popular, and the best way to play it. For anyone that is still trying to figure out what this whole thing is, we’ll do our best to answer any questions you may have.
What Is Wordle?
Wordle is a very simple word association game where the player is given five blank squares and the entire alphabet. The player must guess what the word is with no hints as to what it may be. However, correctly guessed letters will be highlighted in yellow. If that letter is in the right spot it will be highlighted in green. The player is given six chances to guess the word. If they get it then their reward is self-satisfaction and the opportunity to share how quickly they guessed the word with friends. Simple enough right?
Part of what makes a game like Wordle so addicting to talk about is that it only features a single word every day. So part of the conversation around the game has to do with the word itself. We want to know when someone has completed the daily puzzle so we can talk about the word, what strategies we used to get to it, and if it stumped us or not. Some people have said they want the ability to access previous puzzles they missed, but the limited aspect of Wordle may be its best feature. The game is intentionally limited and that’s what makes the conversation around it so exciting. When a puzzle is finished you can’t wait to play the next one. This also helps extend the game’s life and avoid something like burnout.
What’s impressive though is that the creator of the game, Josh Wardle, didn’t create the game to try and turn it into the mega hit it is now. While others saw this game and immediately saw an opportunity to profit off its popularity, Wardle was simply happy creating a guessing game for him and his partner that loves word games. Now, it’s overwhelming to think about how many people are playing it with them.
How Do I Play Wordle?
So as we said earlier, playing Wordle is very simple. Once a day a new puzzle drops and the player will be given six chances to guess the five letter word. However, if all you do is guess blindly then you’re going to find yourself having a hard time making any progress. While the true fun of Wordle is getting through the puzzle using your own wits, we do know of a few strategies to make the experience a little smoother. The key is in how you start the game and there are few ways to go about it.
Go For The Vowels
The most popular strategy on Wordle right now is by trying to figure out how many vowels are in the word. As such, a lot of people choose to start off with a vowel-heavy word such as ADIEU. This gives the player every single vowel plus Y to work with. From that point on it’s just figuring out how to frame a word around those vowels. This may seem a little formulaic, but the truth about puzzles is that most of them are formulaic in some capacity.
The reason this strategy works is that vowels are the building blocks of most words in the English language. The majority of words are going to feature one if not multiple vowels and it’s why knowing which ones are in a word can make finding the consonants around those vowels far easier. Vowels are so powerful when it comes to forming words that in Wheel of Fortune they make players buy them.
The Wheel Of Fortune Strategy
Anyone that’s watched Wheel of Fortune knows about the bonus round where a contestant is given a blank board and one hint. However, starting in 1988 the gameshow started automatically giving contestants the series of letters RSTLNE, plus their guesses of three consonants and one vowel. Why start players off with that series of letters in particular? Because those letters happen to make up 45 percent of words in the English language.
Many players of Wordle have taken to using this strategy in their own guesses. Since Wordle requires the player to guess actual words instead of a series of letters players will typically go with something like RENTS or they’ll mix in a few more vowels to get ROAST or LINED. The goal of using this strategy is to try and find as many letters as possible early on so filling in the blanks later isn’t as much of a challenge.
However, the player chooses to go about this, as long as you’re solving the puzzle and having fun then it doesn’t really matter what you do. We’ve just found that these methods have worked best for us.
