From Wordle to Worldle, Heardle, and Nerdle: More games await
March 16, 2022
The overnight success of the word game Wordle has now brought several spin-offs, and there is a new one for everybody.
The original Wordle, developed by designer Josh Wardle, gives players six tries to guess a five-letter word. After each guess, letters that the player guessed will turn gray if the letter is not in the word at all, yellow if the letter is in the word but not in the correct place, and green if the letter is in the right place. The player wins the day’s puzzle if all five letters turn green.
Wordle has recently been sold to the New York Times, and players can find it in the games tab at Wordle – The New York Times.
Because Wordle has a fairly simple concept, it is easy to make personalized versions for every aspect of pop culture.
For geography lovers, there is Worldle and Globle. Worldle gives an outline of a country shape, and players have to guess the country in six tries. After every guess, the game shows players how far away the secret country is from the guess, and an emoji showing the general direction. For Globle, players are given a globe without country borders, and players have to type in country names. The country will appear in a shade of red; the darker the color, the closer the country is to the mystery country.
There are also several pop-culture-inspired spin offs. For Star Wars fans comes SWordle, a basic Wordle concept, with five-letter words that originated in a galaxy far, far away. Lordle of the Rings, Disney-themed Mickeyrdle, Squirdle for Pokemon lovers, and Harry Potter-themed Wizarding Wordle are just a few others to try.
For Weezer band lovers comes Weezle, with daily five-lettered Weezer song lyrics. There is even a Wordle for Swifties, with players guessing Taylor Swift-inspired song lyrics and words in Taylordle.
Following a basic Wordle concept, there are several games that have multiple words that can be solved at the same time. These include Dordle, where players solve two boards simultaneously; Quordle, which has four boards; and Octordle, which has eight boards.
For math lovers, Nerdle is a perfect daily brain teaser. Players get six tries to guess an eight-character math equation. Numble is similar to Nerdle, but it gives players the answer and they have to find the correct equation.
A music-themed Wordle spin-off has also surfaced. Heardle gives players the intro to a popular song, and they have six tries to guess the name of the song and the artist.
For the first guess, players get one second of the song. Then, it doubles to two seconds for guess two. For the third guess, players listen to four seconds of the song, then eight and finally sixteen. The music is from all genres, but mostly features music that has been released within the past 20 years.
While the original Wordle is still appealing and fun to play, people should consider adding another daily word brain teaser to their routine.