WORDLE HURDLE?

Writers love words, and solving a simple word puzzle seems like a great way to get the brain cells firing before settling down to work. Hence the success of internet phenomenon Wordle. Chances are you hadn’t heard of it until January, yet now creator Josh Wardle (yes, the game’s name is a pun on his name) has sold it to the New York Times for a low seven figure sum.

Wordle was only launched in mid-October last year, Wardle having originally developed it as something for himself and his partner, Palak

Shah, to play during lockdown – though Wardle did create a prototype of a similar game in 2013, and it must be said, Wordle has a lot in common with one of the rounds in the short lived 1988 ITV game show, Lingo.

By November Wordle had an average of ninety players a day. Then in late December Wardle added the ability to share results online without giving the solution away, and by early January the game was being played by two million a day, largely as a result of people shared their result on Twitter.

Naturally this viral success attracted interest, with the result that on January 31 Wardle announced on Twitter that he had sold Wordle to the New York Times. He added that that ‘When the game moves to the NYT site, it will be free to play for everyone.’ However, the NYT itself only said that Wordle will ‘initially remain free’, leading to fears that the company will quickly put the game behind their paywall, which seems a reasonable suspicion given in a statement the news organisation said: ‘The Times remains focused on becoming the essential subscription for every Englishspeaking person seeking to understand and engage with the world. New York Times Games are a key part of that strategy…’

It’s a strategy that might well backfire. How many people outside the US

are going to pay £104 a year to subscribe to an American news site/paper just to a play a word game for five minutes a day? The million dollar plus purchase might just turn out not to be such a great idea.

Meanwhile play Wordle for free (while you still can) atwww. power language. co.uk/wordle/

• Twitter and Facebook, especially, seem to be drowning in Wordle addicts sharing their daily scores and tips for success.

Most prioritise the most commonly used letters in the English language, so recommend starting with IRATE, RATIO or, to maximise those crucial vowels early on, ADIEU.

The geekiest point out that it’s not natural frequency in the full language that matters (so you’re not thrown out by all those Es in ‘the’, ‘he’, she’, etc), but frequency within words themselves. The more moderate point out that the top eight has the same letters either way: EAR IOTNS (followed by L CU D if you’ re using within-word frequency ).

The WM Wordle-hounds used to favour a STEIN / STAIN start, followed by FLOUR, WACKY or BRECK, but writing this has highlighted a new idea: opening with RIOTS and CLEAN gets the entire top ten out in your first two picks.

What’s your Wordle strategy? Write in to let us know or tag us on Twitter. @writingmagazine