As the game Wordle begins to take over the world, we also have an obligation to look back at what made this game so addictive and how The New York Times took it over and made it much harder. If you have never played Wordle before, it is a video game where you have to guess five-letter words until you guess the correct word. You have 6 tries. The website keeps a streak of how many words you are getting in the 6 tries. The letters in the word you guess can turn grey, yellow, or green. Grey means the letter is not in the word; yellow means it is in the word but not in the correct space; green means it is in the word and in the correct space. Letters can be repeated making the game much harder.

Wordle was released in October 2021 and made by Josh Wardle. He came up with the game for his partner, Palak Shah, who loves word games. In January, Wordle started to become popular. The game allows you to compete with your friends by sharing how many times it took you to guess the correct word. Also, it is an ad-free game. An L-S junior, Allie Schwartz, plays Wordle every day because “it is short, fun, and challenging. I like trying out new strategies to get the word in the fewest number of guesses.”

Towards the end of January, after The New York Times saw how popular this game was, they decided to buy it. At the beginning of February, the game switched over to their site. Many people were worried that they would lose their streak, and that was the case for some people. You had to make sure to go to the original URL before going to the new URL associated with The New York Times. As of right now, Wordle is still free and a new word is available every day. L-S junior, Lea Murphy, says, “I would not pay for Wordle if it is not free anymore. I do like playing it, but not enough to pay.”

Similarly, there are many spin-offs of Worlde now like Quardle, in which you solve four different words in nine tries, Octordle, which you solve eight words in thirteen tries, and Taylordle, which has words having to do with Taylor Swift. There is also Wordle Unlimited where you can play Wordle with unlimited words. These spinoffs are also of no charge; they are just on a different website.