In the past few months, one certain word game has taken the internet by storm; Wordle. Wordle has become very popular in the past few months, with over 300,000 players daily (according to the New York Times). In this word-guessing game, the player must guess the random five-letter word using a series of hints given by the game. A green letter means it’s the correct letter in the right place, a yellow means correct letter in the wrong place, and gray means the letter isn’t in the word. That means that as the player guesses, they discover more hints about the placement of the letters. The player has six guesses to get the word correctly, and a new puzzle comes out each day.

Wordle was created by a software engineer from Brooklyn, New York, named Josh Wardle. Wardle decided to name the game using his last name (Wordle, Wardle). He created Wordle for him and his partner to play and made it public on Twitter in October of 2021. It became very popular. Then, in late January of 2022, The New York Times bought Wordle from Wardle. The New York Times paid an estimated $1,000,000+ to acquire Wordle. The New York Times has decided not to add Wordle to its collection of games that require a subscription, like the Spelling Bee or crosswords. That makes Wordle available to everyone, subscription or not. However, The New York Times has altered Wordle by changing the solutions. It has taken out solutions that are inappropriate or rude. Some people think this is fine, while others believe that The New York Times is taking it too far, and not only taking out rude words but additionally taking out words that aren’t necessarily rude or offensive. The New York Times is also having issues with other things, such as keeping people’s Wordle streaks, which caused several players to be upset. Some people believe that The New York Times is altering Wordle too much from how it was originally.

Many spin-offs of Wordle have been created since it became public. One of these includes a Wordle made for Taylor Swift fans- Taylordle. This spin-off uses the same rules, except the words used have to be associated with Taylor Swift. Some spin-offs include Wordles where the player has to guess words in different languages, such as Spanish, Latin, and French. Another is Wordle Unlimited, where the player can play the game repeatedly with new words without waiting until the next day for a new puzzle. One other one is Octordle, where the player has thirteen guesses to find all eight words on the board. Many others have been created as well.

In conclusion, this popular word game has a lot behind the scenes. What will the future of Wordle hold?