What is in Wordle? Five character puzzle madness moves to the world | Technology/Tools

WASHINGTON, 13 janvier — Cinq lettres, six tentatives et une seule énigme à résoudre par jour: la formule “Wordle” ne pourrait pas être plus simple, mais en quelques semaines, le casse-tête en ligne a person des deit de fait de millions the scientist.

“It grabs you” about the code-breaking challenge – perhaps best described as a cross between the old board game “Mastermind” and everyday crossword puzzles, daily gamer Susan Drobin told AFP.

“The good thing about it is that it only takes a few minutes, usually, and it’s a really nice little distraction,” said the 65-year-old from a suburb of Washington.

The rise of the mystery was a meteorite: according to Le New York Times, 90 people played on November 1st. Two months later, on January 2, more than 300,000 took part in the challenge. Watchman The number of players per day last weekend was estimated at 2 million, and up…

Wordle rules are very simple: Find the word of the day in six attempts or less. Each valid word guess must be five letters long: letters in the correct space turn green, and letters that are part of the answer but in the wrong place turn yellow.

Only one word is given per day, and it is one for all. Can’t solve a puzzle today? You’ll just have to wait until tomorrow for the next day.

Although the game itself is accessible on the website rather than the app, players can create a shareable widget, with six lines of colored squares indicating the number of attempts needed to solve the puzzle – without giving an answer. Today, of course.

A few weeks later, Drubin – like hordes of gamers – started sharing his findings on social media under the hashtag #Wordle.

Thus, a viral phenomenon was born.

“just fun”

Part of what makes Wordle special is that it doesn’t cost anything to play – and it’s even more whimsical and ad-free.

Its designer Josh Wardle, a software engineer based in Brooklyn but originally from Wales, decided not to monetize the game.

“I think people kind of appreciate that there’s something fun on the Internet,” Wardle said. Le New York Times Monday. “It’s not trying to do something suspicious with your data or your eyeballs.”

While the game’s site – “powerlanguage.co.uk/wordle” – is free of ads or popups, it didn’t take long for enterprising scribes to try to emulate the concept of the game, creating copies from the App Store to purchase since retired.

The only app left is an unrelated game called “Wordle!” An exclamation mark made by a teenager five years ago.

Developer Stephen Kravata, now 24, said he initially “had no idea what was going on” when his app began logging more than 40,000 downloads per day.

“I didn’t know it was crazy,” said Kravata. The Wall Street Journal.

The right to brag

For Mikael Jacobson, research coordinator at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Game Lab, Wordle falls into the category of “fill in the blanks,” a game that you “pull out when you’re waiting for a friend or a bus.”

He attributes his success in part to the ease with which results can be shared with friends, whether through social media or word of mouth.

When you solve the puzzle, “You feel so proud of yourself…you have that share button right there.” So you can flaunt it a little bit, which we love to do.

Rachel Quert, a psychologist specializing in video games, also refers to social comparison theory, according to which everyone wants to evaluate themselves in relation to others.

The temptation is that satirical discussions have cropped up online about mute friends tweeting their “humble bragging” results.

Another key part of the game’s allure, says Koert, is that “being restricted to one a day makes you feel like you’re psychologically short.”

“Don’t overdo it with the session, it makes you want to come back and keep playing day in and day out,” she said.

Wordle is already being adapted into other languages, including French, having quickly taken over the English-speaking world — despite spoiler alert, the American spelling of the word Wednesday has prompted shouts of protest from online gamers from online gamers. originator. – France Press agency