Wordsmiths of Wordle

Josh Wardle, a Welsh Software Engineer and erstwhile Reddit employee, made history when he created Wordle, the latest word game now viral on the net, for him and his partner to play. He said he did not want to make money out of it though New York Times has reportedly paid a low seven figure amount to acquire the game. (Many other interesting games are available on http://www.nytimes.com).

Now, there are many versions of the game which is available on the net starting from Dordle (twin wordles), Tridle (a trio), Quordle (a quartet), Octordle (an octate) and even Nerdle(with figures). Wordle is a square of six lines of five letters each. The player has to guess the word of the day. The letters appearing in green is in the word and in the correct place too. The letters appearing in yellow is in the word but in the wrong place. The letters appearing in grey is not in the word at all. The colours may vary in the other versions but the rules are the same. So the gamer has to put the letters in the correct place to form the word.

Once you get the heck of it, the game is interesting and stimulating. Since, I am into words, I find the various versions of the game a very good time pass while travelling to and fro office or during lunch break and other leisure times.

Like all other craze, this is also going to die down once gamers get tired of it and look for something new. But why I am writing this post is because while playing the game I gathered the following :

Firstly, I felt extremely intelligent when I could guess the word of the day – be it Wordle, Quordle or Octordle. They are all good brain teasers but the choice of word is limited to five lettered ones only. In the beginning, I thought such games were meant to de-accelerate the aging process of the brain. But recently I read an article on the net which stated that it merely gives cognitive pleasure i.e. it pleases the gamer when he/she is able to guess the word correctly. But it does not decrease the biological process of mental degeneration which is a pity.

Secondly, while gaming, I learnt a few new words which I did not know existed or I had seen them being used anywhere. This could be my limitation of vocabulary. I was really surprised when suddenly a permutation combination of letters got accepted as a valid word which was kind of by chance as I was just trying out my luck and did not actually know such a word was there. If the word is invalid the app does not accept it. I will give a few words which are my serendipitous finds :

Spiff – Make someone or something attractive, smart, or stylish. “He arrived all spiffed up in a dinner jacket”

Skiff – A light rowing boat or sculling boat, typically for one person.

SMIFF (is an acronym and not accepted by the apps as a valid word but it is there) – Shoot me in the Fuckin’ Face.

All the above words and their meanings are from Google and I have not consulted any dictionary so far.

Thirdly, as I progressed from Wordle to Quordle to Octordle (I did not do Dordle) I realized the words of the day are simple ones. But when guessing the same, the most difficult ones would come to mind and of course they were the wrong ones!! From this I infer that when we look for solutions to any problems in our lives, the answers are simple but we always overlook them and run after some miraculous resolution which is actually either not required or never there. It is queer human psychology that the puzzle solver takes for granted the answer to a riddle to be always a mind-boggler. On the contrary, it is not. The reply is unbelievably easy and ordinary. The take away here is that simple things (read solutions) matter the most and they are the most difficult to set our heart and mind on.

Fourthly, while gaming there is a point when you get saturated guessing and even falling short of guessing. It is at that point when you should sleep over it or leave the game. Do not make it an addiction. A daily habit is good but not an addiction which becomes a disease and negatively affects you and your system. I think breaks from everything is required – be it work or play.

Coming to various variants of Wordle, https://engaging-data.com has combined Scrabble and Wordle and come up with ScrabWordle and Word Guesser. I am yet to figure out the dynamics of these. Our own Indian counterparts have developed the multiplayer Wordle (https://wordlecup.io) where you can play the game in groups or privately too. However, I have not been able to score much on the interactive platform and the opponents (albeit unknown) have always been swifter which again provides a very invaluable nugget of wisdom to realize that whether you play it on your own or in group, there will always be someone faster, better and smarter than you and you cannot be the winner all the time. After a few trials, when I fail to make it, I give in simply because it saves a lot of head aches and heart aches.

I have never been the ambitious kind. But I always took pride in certain things. However, as my days on this planet earth numbers a mellowed mindset and an odd kind of exhaustion set in which make me abhor anything that requires a degree of haste and hurry. Perhaps that is not suitable state of mind for a competitive Wordle player or any gamer because in the final analysis all games (indoor & outdoor) require a quickness of mind and limb. I lack both or it can be said I have never paid attention to sharpening this go-getter attribute. In that sense, I am laid back and eased around those manoeuvres required to move up the ladder of so called success faster. Merit is not always the denominator of any kind of progress in life – this I am quite sure of.

Coming back to Wordle and its variants, the high will continue till netizens get bored and look for some fresher stimulus. Till then more variants will pile up. Once the kick is over some great mind will stumble upon/cook up a newer model and all will flock towards the same moving forward from the old or existent. And that is how I suppose human history moves on…