Wordle Diaries

 

Jan 20: Of late, on my Twitter feed I have been noticing some tiles, interspersed with a combination of green, yellow and white squares. When I closely watched I saw that on top it was written ‘Wordle’, along with a number, followed by fractions like 2/6 or 4/6. The one with 2/6 closely resembles a dairy milk chocolate pattern.

Can’t make any head or tail of it. Looks like some colour puzzle.

Jan 24: Got a WhatsApp forward from my friend providing a link to an article regarding Wordle (Well it is a word game after all) and its ground rules.

I have been a jumble word puzzle enthusiast and used to pore over newspapers for such puzzles. Many a weekend and office hours were spent solving them. And I am quite proficient in it. So Wordle must be easy. 

Sigh! My cockiness was misplaced. I wish I had the patience to read through the ground rules. Exhausted all six tries without hitting the right word.

Pored through the ground rules and tried to access the game again. Heck, the next game will happen only the next day. Wordle follows only one word per day! Even newspaper jumbles had five words. Anyway, no apps need to be downloaded.

Jan 25: Today I was able to solve it 6/6. Looking back I realized I did goof up a bit. Had used those grey marked letters in subsequent words. So basically it is a guessing-cum-elimination word game built on a bedrock of sound vocabulary. It allows only six tries and a useful rule of the thumb is that if a letter falls into a grey tile, ensure that subsequent words you guess don’t have them.

Jan 26: Wow! Got 3/6 and as soon as I finished, the screen flashed ‘splendid’. Began doing some Google searches about the background of the game and its creators. From all those readings I could gather that the game’s inventor is a guy named Josh Wardle and he did so to entertain his wife Palak Shah. This Indian connection surely must have warmed the cockles of many a desi heart. Wordle made its debut last October.

Jan 30: By now a couple of my friends have also started wracking their brains for that elusive word that could paint the row green within those six tries. I began getting their results on WhatsApp. From the timings of their messages, I felt basically the Wordle universe can be divided into two. Those who solve it at around midnight by keeping awake at those unearthly hours and those who do it first thing in the morning.

Feb 1: Got a few forwards of links stating that the New York Times has decided to purchase Wordle for ‘low-seven figures’. Checked Twitter and it was abuzz with opinions and memes ranging from plain wonderment that a game, which is a few months old, could catch the fancy of a reputed brand like NYT, to fears that the game would soon go behind a paywall.

Feb 5: The NYT acquisition seems to have made Wordle a talking point and brought in more players. In certain WhatsApp groups, I came across people asking ‘Wordle anyone’. Meanwhile, the Wordle results of friends on WhatsApp are also on the rise.

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