‘Nerdle’

With Valentine’s Day upon us, I thought I’d post something about love. By that, I mean Wordle, the online word game that has taken the planet by storm.

Wordle is one of the few good things to emerge from the pandemic, other than embracing our natural hair color, finding more creative ways to celebrate birthdays, and giving educators and health care workers the praise they have deserved all along.

According to a New York Times story headlined “Wordle is a Love Story,” Brooklyn-based software engineer Josh Wardle designed the game after he and his wife, Palak Shah, began playing the paper’s spelling bee and crossword puzzles regularly after the pandemic began.

Wardle wanted a game for them to play each morning as part of their routine. He wanted it to feel like a croissant, a “delightful snack” that’s enjoyed occasionally.

“Enjoyed too often,” Wardle wrote in a Reddit post, “and they lose their charm.”

This is precisely why there’s only one puzzle per day. And it could be why Rebecca likes Wordle so much. “Did someone say croissants?”

“It’s something that encourages you to spend three minutes a day. And that’s it. It doesn’t want any more of your time than that,” said Wardle, who shared it with his family on WhatsApp before opening it up to the public.

Wardle claims he never planned to make money from it, adding: “I don’t understand why something can’t just be fun. I don’t have to charge people money for this and ideally would like to keep it that way.”

Ideally. More on that later.

Twitter users who read my blog (the three of you) may have noticed more and more people posting gray, green and yellow squares in a grid on their news feeds. On other social media platforms, such as Meh-ta/Facebook, you’ll find folks sharing their daily Wordle scores.

If you’re not familiar with Wordle, the game requires players to guess a five-letter word of the day in six attempts or less. In each attempt, the five letters in the word are arranged in a three-color scale, giving the player hints while shaping their next attempt.

For instance, if a letter is marked green, it is not only in the word of the day, but also in its correct position. If a letter is marked yellow, it is in the word of the day, but not in its correct position. Letters that are not in the day’s word are marked gray.

The free (for now) game must be played on a website. There is no app.

Note: Be wary of fake Wordles. Apple pulls Wordle clones from its App Store, but don’t be surprised if more pop up.

Every 24 hours there’s a new word of the day, and it’s up to you to figure out what it is.

Following its release in October 2021, Wordle was initially slow to catch on, with about 90 players at the start of November. By January, it had more than 300,000 players, according to the Times, which at the end of last month, bought Wordle from Wardle for a price “in the low seven figures.”

Now, over 2 million people play.

Eventually, the game will become part of the newspaper’s subscription puzzle service. A tweet from the Times’ Wordplay account said: “The game will still be free.”

For now. Ideally.

I started playing Wordle in January. This game is so good. Simple yet compelling.

Who knew five-letter words could be so captivating? Or that there was a strategy to the frequency and position of letters. Nerdles, that’s who.

But why is it so popular? Other than the croissant connection, of course.

Even Jimmy Fallon, host of NBC’s “Tonight Show” plays Wordle. He’s terrible at it. Thank goodness for his sidekick, Steve Higgins, who coaches Fallon.

My writer friend Martha, who enjoys word games, says she likes Wordle because she likes “competing against her brain.”

“I’m hoping to recharge my synapses,” she adds. “Call me ‘The Queen’s Gambit’ of Wordle.”

Here are some other reasons people are wild about Wordle:

• There’s only one puzzle per day. This creates a certain level of stakes. You only get one chance. If you mess up, you must wait until the next day to get a new puzzle.
• Everyone plays the exact same puzzle. This is crucial, as it makes it easier to ping your friends (and cousins) to chat about the day’s puzzle. “Man, today’s Wordle was tough!” “Did you get Wordle today? How many tries?” “Can you believe you didn’t figure it out sooner?”
• You may share your results. Once you’ve successfully or unsuccessfully done the daily puzzle, you’re invited to share your Wordle work for the day. If you share the image on social media, it will look like this one above from Fallon.

Here are some tips I wish I’d known before playing my first game of Wordle, which took all six tries and left me feeling like an idiot:

• Your first word. This is arguably the most important step. To maximize its value, choose a word with three vowels and five different letters. Some examples: orate, media, radio. I always use “adieu,” mostly because “the Tonight Show” announcer Higgins suggested it, and he’s smart.
• Avoid reusing grays. There’s a keyboard at the bottom of the Wordle board that shows what letters are green, yellow and gray. Avoid reusing letters that are gray. Sounds obvious. It isn’t. Trust me.
• Letters can appear twice. This complicates matters, especially when you’re running out of letters to try on attempt four or five. But letters often recur, as with words like chill, sissy and ferry having been the correct answers in past games.

As a self-described Nerdle, I like Wordle because it makes me think about one thing for three minutes. It slows me down and helps me focus. Sometimes it makes my 60-plus-year-old neurons work hard to the point of actual exertion.

No pain, no gain. And that takes some … SKILL.