Trendsvol. 3

Did You Do Today’s Wordle?

Crossword puzzles get a digital makeover

—By Kaitlyn Luckoff


“Have you done today’s Wordle yet?” is a question that has suddenly inserted itself into nearly every conversation that we overhear nowadays. The shareability of the colored blocks after completing the daily puzzle has created a frenzy among friends and family members, comparing who completed the puzzle in fewer attempts. How did this game become such a phenomenon that is now deeply entrenched in our lives, and conversations? 

The Wordle puzzle is composed of a five by six grid that refreshes the daily word at midnight for players to participate each day. The five horizontal squares represent the letters in the daily puzzle, and the six rows constitute the amount of guesses each player has for that day’s puzzle.

Each day, players are able to navigate to the Wordle webpage where a fresh puzzle is available for them. The puzzle resets at midnight to a different five-letter word, and players guess words, using the results of their previous guesses to guide their next move. If a letter is guessed correctly from the word, it is highlighted yellow. Similarly, if the letter is correct and in the correct place, it is highlighted green. To accommodate more players, there is a color-blind setting. 

The name “Wordle” comes from a play on words of the software engineer who created the website’s last name. Josh Wardle originally created the game for he and his partner to play, and it later gained popularity among his entire family. This prompted Wardle to release his creation to the rest of the world. This game hit the internet in October of 2021, with fewer than 100 daily players. By January, 3,000 people began to play. By the end of the month, Wordle had racked up millions of daily players. 

Prior to the increase in popularity due to social media, there were very few Wordle players. University of Michigan Ross School of Business student Alex Vogel was one of the few that played Wordle before it became such a sensation. Vogel shared that her family is the reason that she found out about the game. 

“I started playing Wordle about a month ago and I heard about it from my parents,” Vogel said in early March of 2022. “I would say originally, it was only my family of five that was playing in terms of my friends and family. But then we got a lot of other people to play, so I would say now all of our family and friends play and I would say it does very often come up in our conversations.” 

In an effort to increase their digital gaming subscriptions, the New York Times purchased Wordle in late January 2022 for a price in “the low seven figures.”  Times has continued to allow players to participate in the daily puzzle for free. As the game was inspired by the daily crossword puzzles from The Times, Wardle shared with a Times reporter that this move felt correct.

New York Times Games play a big part in its origins,” Wardle said in a Twitter statement according to the Times, “and so this step feels very natural to me.”

Additionally, there have been many spin offs that have resulted from the popularity of Wordle.

“Now they’ve come out with a bunch of other versions of Wordle,” Vogel said. “So my family also plays the Quordle, which is four letters, and also the Hurdle which is with music.”

Each day, a new word is available to complete the puzzle for. However, some players believe that since the viral game has been taken over by the New York Times, the daily puzzles have become far more difficult to complete.

“I think it has definitely become more difficult since the New York Times took over,” Vogel said. “I think that there’s a much larger range of words and some of them are super, super easy. Easier than they’ve ever been. And some of them are much harder than they have ever been.”

However, according to researchers, it is unlikely that the feelings of difficulty players are experiencing can be properly attributed to the takeover. As there is a new word each day, the level of difficulty fluctuates by the day and player.

Tiger Webb, an editorial adviser and researcher at the Australian Broadcasting Corporation who specializes in language, isn’t so sure the game’s complexity has increased. He shared with the Guardian what he believes the perceived increase in difficulty could be attributed to. 

“Two things could be going on,” he said. People may be seeing “a pattern where there may not be any and maybe in the backend something could be different with the sale to the New York Times … but we don’t know”. “It could be harder, they could have changed something, we don’t know. But even if they haven’t changed anything…open a dictionary at a random page and you will find a five-letter word in English you don’t know,” he added.

In response to these accusations, The New York Times communications director Jordan Cohen said in an email to The Guardian that no changes have been made. 

Recently, there have been multiple accusations and stories released about the increase in cheating on Wordle. According to CNBC, a reference website for similar word games like Scrabble, Wordfinderx, utilized Google Trends data to establish that “Google searches for the answer to Wordle’s daily puzzle have nearly tripled ever since The New York Times acquired Wordle in January.” There appear to be two ways to attribute this increase in cheating. One, is blaming the New York Times for the increase in difficulty.

Other sources have revealed that, “the New York Times has, so far, only removed some words from the list of possible solutions while actually replacing some harder words with easier ones, like swapping out “AGORA” for “AROMA”.

The second, and more simple, explanation for the increase in cheating on Wordle could be credited to the uptick in players. As more and more people continue to join the phenomenon each day, the proportion of players that engage in cheating will simultaneously increase.  

Among the increase in popularity, some loyal fans have gone so far to describe themselves as completely obsessed. University of Michigan school of Kinesiology sophomore Jessica Blum described herself as “completely addicted” as she has been playing the game for a little over two months, and couldn’t imagine starting her mornings any other way. 

“I first heard about it from my grandparents when I was visiting them at the end of January because they played,” Blum said. “They heard about it from their friends. Now, my friend Alex and I send each other our Wordle score and spread every morning.” 

Although loyal players like Blum have been playing since January, some have joined the trend more recently as the game has become more popular in the media and daily conversations. University of Michigan LSA sophomore Melissa Caster explained that she plays Wordle every few days, as she usually remembers to complete the daily puzzle when she overhears friends discussing it. 

Despite a perceived increase in difficulty, there has been no sign of a decrease in popularity. As the puzzle refreshes each day, it has become a part of many people’s daily routines to participate in the trend. While the game is extremely simple, the accessibility to the mobile site and quick participation time attracts players to return each day. According to Vogel, as Wordle has become part of daily routines, people have likewise become emotionally attached to the game, as they compete with friends and family to see who can complete the puzzle in fewer attempts. 

Looking forward, as the number of players continues to multiply daily, there appears to be no end in sight for the hype surrounding Wordle. 

Feature photo by Kaitlyn Luckoff