Here are a few fun facts about Wordle that you should know. (Express Photo) Wordle has taken the world by storm, and the hype around the simple puzzle game continues to stay strong. However, there is a lot more going on with Wordle apart from the daily puzzle. Here are five Wordle facts you probably didn’t know about.
First viral trend of 2022
Sharing one’s daily Wordle story on Twitter became such a big trend that Twitter had to outright crown the puzzle game the first big viral trend of 2022. Twitter revealed last week that since its release in October 2021, ‘Wordle’ has been mentioned a total of 840,000 times across the platform (as of January 14, 2022).
In India, 96 percent of Wordle conversations on Twitter took place in January 2022. Among Indians, the obsession has since grown steadily, with a 48 percent daily average growth in Wordle discussions within the country.
Wordle origins
Wordle was created by Josh Wardle, a programmer back in October 2021. Originally created as a game for Wardle and his partner Palak Shah, the game was made public in October and has since become a popular internet trend across the world.
The game continues to work with a randomisation algorithm that uses a word from a randomly ordered list of 2,315 words. Even Wardle, the game’s creator doesn’t know what word is going to pop up next, also allowing him to enjoy the game with the rest of us every day.
War of Wordles
Wordle uses the US-English spellings instead of UK-English, which means COLOR can be words within the game. However, as per a report by The Washington Post, this enraged a lot of UK-based Wordle players when one day, the word to guess was FAVOR.
As Twitter filled with a lot of people complaining that the game would give a natural advantage to those using the American spellings of common words, every player was now aware that multiple spellings was an element to be aware of while solving Wordle.
Clone scandals
Wordle continues to be a free-to-play game that can be accessed on any browser, from any platform. The creator has announced his plans to not monetise the game in any way, but this didn’t stop a number of developers from blatantly copying the game’s core elements into their own apps and games. The difference? These versions would be full of ads and in-app purchases.
The worst of these examples came from Zach Shakked, a developer who not only created a clone of the game called “Wordle – The App”, but went on to monetise it by adding a $30 annual subscription to allow players to solve an unlimited number of puzzles daily, instead of just one a day.
Shakked and his actions attracted attention quickly and Twitter users bombarded his account, criticising the move, until the developer was forced to take down the app and issue a public apology.
Giving back to the community
Unlike the many clones of Wordle that continue to be criticised, “Wordle!” a completely different word-based puzzle continues to exist on the App Store. This is because this game, one which features different mechanics compared to the viral one by Josh Wardle, was in fact present on the store before Wordle became a thing.
Steven Cravotta, the developer of the original game, has now reportedly teamed up with Josh Wardle, the developer of the newer, browser-based game to donate any money earned by his ‘Wordle!’ app to charity. The developers will be donating the earnings from the app to BoostOakland, a California-based charity that aims to tutor and mentor young Oakland kids.
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