I’m
usually an ADIEU person, but to mix it up, I sometimes start with CHAOS.
If that
objectively strange (and definitely confusing) sentence makes sense, then you
are probably one of the millions who begin or end their day with Wordle. For
the uninitiated,
Wordle is a deceptively straightforward word game that debuted
just last October, in which players get six chances to guess a predetermined
five-letter word. A green brick indicates whether the letter is correct and in
the right place, a yellow brick means that the letter appears in the word but
in a different location, and a gray or black brick indicates the letter is not
present at all. Each guess is precious, and that first word is all-important.
اضافة اعلان
The addictive
challenge has sparked much debate about strategy as friends and family engage
in some friendly competition (or trash-talking) by showing off their results on
social media. A cottage industry of sites has even popped up offering tips; you
can learn to optimize your game using information theory or head to FirstWord,
a site that will grade the efficacy of your opener.
One popular
strategy is to start with a vowel-heavy word, like ARISE, SUAVE, or my trusty
ADIEU. By getting three or four vowels out there from the jump, one can quickly
narrow down the list of possible solutions.
But not everyone
is convinced that vowels are the way to go. “My hot take is that vowels are
overrated, because your brain naturally fills in vowels more easily than
consonants,” said Erin Parker, a beauty educator in Los Angeles. She points to vanity
plates as proof of her theory; the vowels are always missing, but the meaning
is still clear.
Parker doesn’t
have a go-to opener; on the day we spoke, she said her first word was ITCHY,
because her dog happened to be scratching herself at the time.
Actress
J. Smith-Cameron, who plays the shrewd attorney Gerri Kellman on “Succession,”
focuses on the process of elimination rather than vowels or consonants. “You
know it’s a five-letter word, so it’s very likely a one-syllable word,” she
said. “So then as you go along, you think, OK, if this vowel is in this place,
does it start with a consonant blend, like a TH, or ST, or SH? Or if you’ve
ruled out E and S and D, what does it end with? Does it end with NG, like
STING? You do naturally start strategizing.”
She said she likes
to switch up her opening word; SUAVE, ATONE, and SLATE are her recent
favorites.
But for some
players, too much strategizing defeats the purpose of the game.
The game’s
touching origin story also helps explains its popularity. Josh Wardle, a
software engineer, created it as a gift for his puzzle-loving partner and never
planned on taking it public.
Perhaps as a
result of its humble beginnings, many players feel protective of the game.
After the
acquisition by The Times, some users began to complain that the words were
getting harder and the game had become less accessible to the average person.
Jonathan Knight, general manager of Games for The Times, said those concerns
were unwarranted. “Since acquiring Wordle, we have not made the puzzle harder,”
he said in a statement. “We have not added any words to the solutions list,
which was already predetermined by the game’s original creator.”
As viral
sensations go, the game is charmingly analog. It’s not encouraging you to keep
playing, watch ads or pay for bonus features; there’s just one
puzzle each day,
and that’s it. It’s an antidote to all-you-can-eat digital bingeing, so low-fi
that it lives in a browser, not an app.
Wordle has also
created a new kind of social language, by enabling people to share their
efforts without revealing the actual words. Those colorful squares posted on
social media are an undemanding and novel kind of virtual connection with
others. Two years into the pandemic, that novelty is welcome.
In a small way, Lewinsky said, it’s reminiscent of
the early pandemic ritual where neighbors applauded and clanged pans out on
their balconies or stoops to celebrate essential workers. “It’s a little touch
point we can have with other people.”
And as our online lives
have become increasingly individualized both by our own choices and by
algorithms mining our data, Wordle is appealingly non-customizable. Everybody
gets the same puzzle, on the same interface, for the same amount of time,
making for a rare water-cooler conversation starter.
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