BY SAMUEL ELLINGSON
STAFF WRITER
If you have been paying attention to social media for the past couple of months, you would know that the internet has recently become obsessed with a new game, Wordle. The objective is simple: figure out what the five letter word is in six guesses or less. As you play, letters that are not in the word are grayed out, letters that are in the word are shaded in yellow, and letters that are in the correct position are shaded green. Using the different clues, players need to identify the new word that refreshes every 24 hours.
But why is it so popular? Well, some think that it is just the simplicity. Or possibly the fact that it is not trying to steal your data or suck you in. People just play the game for fun. Plus, it has created a healthy social media community. Families band together in competition, and people have found a way to share their scores without spoiling the word for others.
Wordle was designed by Josh Wardle, who was originally creating this game for his wife. Since she loved it so much, he decided to publish it to the world in October 2021. By November 1st, there were 90 people playing it per day. But as months passed, the game quickly gained popularity. Wardle said that he was overwhelmed with its popularity, which influenced his decision to sell it to New York Times.
The New York Times is the new owner of Wordle, and they have promised that it would stay free to play. Before selling, Wardle confirmed that the New York Times would keep the players in mind, maintaining the same gameplay and simplicity. The New York Times said that they bought Wordle for a “small seven digit sum”, so it is assumed that the whole thing costs more than 1 million dollars!
More intriguing than the history of the game is the statistics and strategies for playing Wordle. Six guesses is a little bit difficult to narrow down one specific word in the English dictionary. People have come up with different strategies to beat the game and maintain their streaks.
First off, it is almost impossible to guess the word on the first try. The Wordle dictionary has exactly 2,315 words (it was revealed by one of the designers who worked on it). If everybody guessed a different word, you would need a school four times as large as MSA to include one person who guesses it correctly on the first try! This logic follows suit with the infinite monkey theorem; that if enough monkeys typed on a keyboard, eventually, one of them would write an entire Shakespearean play.
So it is practically impossible to get the word on the first try. But six guesses is still very slim, and every guess needs to matter. This means that guesses that repeat letters that you already know aren’t in the word are useless. For example, a first guess like R-A-R-E-R would be pointless, because the R’s repeat. Each guess should maximize how many letters it confirms are in the word.
Following the English language, there are definitely some letters that show up more than often. In this entire article, the letter E shows up 668 times, and the letter Q shows up six times. The most frequent letters in the English language are E, A, R, O, T, I, L, S, and N (in that order!). That means the first word should include some of those letters. On the other hand, there is also the consideration that almost every English word has a vowel (or a Y, which is considered a half-vowel). My personal two opening words are A-D-I-E-U and then S-T-O-R-M. The first determines which vowels I am using, and the second clears a few of the most frequent English letters.
However, just opening up with vowels is not advised because practically every word uses them. Discovering that the word contains an E is much less useful than discovering if the word has an L. The statistically best way to play Wordle is to guess words with four consonants and one vowel. By the fifth guess, you will have uncovered what vowels are used, and you can take off sixteen of the twenty-one consonants.
But there are still differences in frequency for all of the consonants, so it is vital to discern which ones to guess first. Statistically, the best starting word of all time is S-T-E-R-N, followed by Y-C-L-A-D, then W-H-O-M-P, B-E-F-O-G, and finally V-I-B-E-X. “Stern” uncovers some of the most popular letters, while “yclad” (which is apparently a word) uncovers the most popular letters after that, and so does “whomp”. After that, the remaining consonants are slightly rarer, so “befog” (which apparently means to confuse somebody, and is possibly my new favorite word) and “vibex” clear almost all of them.
Of course, this is the algorithm that should be broken at any point in the game. If you are sure you know what the word is, don’t wait until the final guess to reveal it! It is dangerous to enter in the fifth guess as vibex, seeing as there is only one more guess to finalize the word, and if you are wrong, you lose your streak. However, after trying this method, I have to say that it is spectacular!
This method makes Wordle very easy to solve, with just a little bit of thinking at the end of the puzzle to finish the word. But sometimes what makes Wordle fun is its challenge. Starting with strange words can make the game harder, and that makes the game much more fun for somebody who wants a challenge. Then again, everybody plays Wordle differently. Some like to think, while others like to just take a break and chill for ten minutes.
In the end, Wordle is a simplistic word-solving game that has been going on for four months. The sheer amount of words in the English language will ensure that it keeps going for many years to come. Plus, other variations are coming out that are just as creative. Nerdle is like Wordle, but it uses numbers and equations instead of letters. There are other variants that have differently themed words, and some variants that try to trick people into paying them money. But the original is still tons of fun to play and will be a classic word game for a very long time. Strategies to play Wordle are ingenious, but not necessary for the players to still have fun. The simplistic guessing game has become a favorite, and it is here to stay.
Peplow, Gemma. “Wordle: How a Simple Online Game Became a Million-Dollar Viral Phenomenon Snapped up by the New York Times.” Sky News, Sky, 2 Feb. 2022, https://news.sky.com/story/wordle-how-a-simple-online-game-became-a-million-dollar-viral-phenomenon-snapped-up-by-the-new-york-times-12530116.
Weiss, Steven. “What a Perfect Wordle Guessing Strategy Teaches Us about English.” Slate Magazine, Slate, 5 Feb. 2022, https://slate.com/technology/2022/02/perfect-wordle-guessing-strategy.html.