15 Interesting Facts about Wordle

What Is Wordle?

Wordle is an online, browser-based game that gives players six attempts to correctly guess a five-letter word. The game was released in October of 2021 and was created by a software engineer in Brooklyn for his partner who loves word games.

Now that you have the gist of things, here are 15 interesting facts about Wordle.

Facts about Wordle:

1. The name is a play on the developer’s name. Wordle was created by a software engineer named Josh Wardle. As a play on his last name, he named it Wordle.
2. You only get one word per day. The Wordle of the day resets at midnight so by design it is fairly binge-proof.
3. Everyone gets the same word each day. No matter where someone is in the world, everybody gets the same Wordle.
4. It’s not an app. Wordle must be played on your browser. It is not even on the App Store or Google Play. But there are a great many copycats, so beware.
5. There’s a hard mode. Users can enable hard mode, which forces players to use the hints they’re given in subsequent guesses – stopping players from guessing words at random.
6. Wordle doesn’t make money. The game is free and has no ads or monetization. Wardle has said that he has no plans to try and build revenue opportunities into the game.
7. Wardle first created a similar prototype in 2013 but it didn’t go anywhere. He showed the game to a group of friends who were unimpressed so he decided to shelve the idea.
8. The game chooses from a database of 2,315 words. Wordle has a library of 2,315 mystery words as well as all 12,972 words you are allowed to guess. You can see the complete list of guessable words here.
9. The game should last for over six years. Going at the rate of one word a day, in its current format, should last for more than six years, with no words being repeated.
10. Wordle uses American English, not British English. Wardle lives in Brooklyn but was born in Wales. Regardless, the words in his database do not UK-English. This means FAVOR, rather than FAVOUR can be used within the game. According to a report by The Washington Post, this enraged a lot of UK-based Wordle players. Players even pointed out that the game’s official website uses a .co.uk domain.
11. Even the game’s creator doesn’t know what word is coming next. Since Wordle picks out a random word every day, even Wardle doesn’t know what the next puzzle of the day will be.
12. Wordle is meant to be gettable. The game’s difficulty level has been carefully designed to allow players to win most of the time. Speaking about this, Wardle said: “There is a reason that every word is 5 letters long and that you are allowed six attempts to guess it. That might seem arbitrary but, with the prototype version, I tested different word lengths and experimented with the number of tries that players were allowed. “Through that process of refinement, I figured out that five letters and six tries was the ideal sweet spot. It’s just limited enough to feel challenging and to make you think, but most of the time people still manage to solve it. So, you feel a real sense of real accomplishment.”
13. It helps to strategize. To guess the word in fewer attempts, you should avoid repeating letters and testing as many vowels in your first guess. Optimal Wordle guesses include: “RAISE”, “ADIEU”, “COALS”.
14. Wordle didn’t always have a share option. The game was released in October, but it wasn’t until December when the share results feature was added in the form of and emoji grid of little colored blocks.
15. Someone else came up with the with the emoji grid that is all over social media. A user on Twitter named Elizabeth S. came up with the emoji grid as a spoiler-free way of sharing. When the developer saw this in action, he decided to add it in as a feature to the game. As of this writing, Wordle has over 2 millions users.

If you liked these facts about Wordle, check out 15 Facts about Chess.

Also, go ahead and share some interesting and fun facts about Wordle that we might have missed below in the comments.