In the midst of a long lecture, you feel like you’re about to lose your mind. When is this going to end? When will the sheets, readings, and work just stop? You tune out the sounds and pray that the class will be over soon. Overcome with boredom and exhaustion, you scroll around on your phone or computer. Oh! I forgot to do Wordle today! Suddenly the bleak, black and white haze you were in is replaced with annoying grey, hopeful yellow, and mesmerizing green. 

Wordle has become a long needed break, a reward for working so hard throughout all your classes. Trying to find the five letter word of the day in six tries, getting grey when the letter isn’t in the word, yellow when it is but in the wrong place, and green when it is both in the word and in the correct place, is exhilarating. You have to go through so many five letter words having to remind yourself that some letters might be reused. Maybe this one will work, wait no it’s 6 letters. What abou- nope this letter isn’t in the word. Maybe-wait no, I already used this letter…but it could appear again.

The ease and simplicity of Wordle are some of the many highlights of the game. Something so simple and easy to do takes our minds off of current problems and stressful situations. It gives us a break–a break we need, a break we deserve, a break we earn, a break we are always robbed of because of other things. But Wordle gives it back to us. Wordle is not time consuming or a brain killer. It doesn’t take that long or require us to overthink too much. This is what makes Wordle so popular and loved by so many people, it is a refresher. 

Wordle itself is straightforward and uncomplicated. It stimulated my brain to think of words that fit the requirements. I started playing it a few months agos, and to be honest…there is no strategy. It is just luck. Sometimes you get fortunate and are able to decipher the word of the day, other days…no such luck. But that’s okay, because the entire point of the game is to try and guess the word not to win. And personally, losing is always a great motivator to try and try again. I mainly play it in my classes when things get boring (or I just don’t want to do the work). It is a very welcome distraction. 

March 4th, a nightmare day. My friend and I were working together on that day’s word. As we mulled over every single possibility, from “heard” to “wheat” we couldn’t figure it out. We went through 5 tries (In all honesty, my friend was doing the most work, literally a genius) and we’re left with “_head”. We racked our brains for words that fit, whead? thead? Xhead? Until finally, FINALLY, we (more like my friend) realised we could reuse letters. And it clicked. AHEAD! It’s all fun and games but when I’m playing the traditional Wordle, I always wish there is one more try or one more word to guess. My wishes were heard as soon enough spin offs started coming out. 

For different people, the love for the game has manifested in different ways. Some are happy with the game itself, while others (much like me) want more. This need for more simplicity, more breaks, more easy, just more Wordle, led to people creating many spin offs of Wordle. Many were based on people’s interests: Taylor Swift (Taylordle); Lord of the Rings (Lordle of the Rings); numbers and maths (Nerdle); and many more. 

One very popular one is Sedecordle: you guess sixteen words simultaneously in twenty-one tries. It sounds very complicated, and it is. It gives me a headache trying to figure out all those words at the same time, especially at the beginning. But I did ask for more, and they sure as hell delivered. When you get towards the end it becomes easier. Sedecordle starts being a game of elimination and using all the letters and rearranging them into words that actually fit. As stressing as it may sound it is fun, it did help waste my time! I wanted something to last longer so I could avoid doing homework (like I don’t already do that) with the excuse that this is an exercise for my brain.

Fundamentally both Wordle and all of its spinoffs are the same. It’s a game where you guess a word with a specific amount of letters and limited guesses (except for the ones that were created for practice like Hello Wordl or WordGuessr). The only differences are semantics: the topics of what they are based on, the number of letters in a word, if you guess more than one word, if you have more or less choices, if you are even guessing a word, and all of those things. 

In my opinion all of these are great games. The ones you enjoy just depend on personal preferences. Whether you like numbers or themed ones better is entirely up to you. For me, personally, I like the original and the Harry Potter Wordle (book nerd here). They are all great and amazing in their own way, with varying themes and purposes. I would love to play all of them and see the differing topics and wasting my time because who doesn’t like to procrastinate?  

Wordle also gives us a sense of unity, something we truly need considering current events. Millions of people around the world are hacking away at the game just like you. A community has been built, brought together by the desire for something normal, something simple. Wordle was just the right thing to actually bring us all together in a world that feels so far apart. Knowing we aren’t alone in doing something, even if it is as simple as just guessing a five letter word, is a reassurance that we all need.