Amaze? Graze? Fraze?? Craze! 

The Wordle craze has taken the world by storm. Even if you’ve personally never googled the word Wordle a day in your life, it’s almost definitely come across your Twitter feed more than once. Have you ever seen those seemingly random boxes of yellow, green, and black? Sometimes there are only two rows, sometimes six? Yeah, that’s someone’s Wordle score. Some may be outraged, and others might be overjoyed with their score for the day. Wordle is a free-to-play web-browser game that is, as of recently, located on the New York Times website. 

If Wordle isn’t something you’re familiar with, here’s a quick rundown. Every day, there’s a new Wordle word of the day that is the same for everyone in the world. The goal of the game is to correctly guess the random five-letter word through a series of trial and error. Wordle gives you no hints, no clues, and no help. It is up to you to come up with words that you think will give you the greatest chance at success. With each guess you make you’ll either get a yellow letter, meaning that the letter is in the word but in the wrong place, a green letter, the letter is in the word and the right place, or a grey letter, meaning that the letter is nowhere in the word. You have a maximum of six tries to try and figure out the word, and whether you guess it or not, everyone only gets one play a day. 

Wordle was created by Josh Wardle – a software engineer from New York City. He published the game late last year in October that was originally meant for him and his partner to play. The success of the game was slow at the start, but as of late January, there have been over 2 million active users. 

As mentioned before, Wordle is a free-to-play game. This aspect of the game is a leading factor as to why the game is so successful. This is the exact reason why people are concerned about the future of everyone’s new favorite word game. As stated before, Wordle was originally published by its creator Josh Wordle, but things have changed recently. The New York Times added another word game to add to their already plentiful list on January 31, 2022, by purchasing Wordle. This acquisition has players worried that Wordle might become pay to play like a few of the Times’ other word-based games. 

Wardle addressed these concerns in a tweet by saying, 

“When the game moves to the NYT site, it will be free to play for everyone, and I am working with them to make sure your wins and streaks will be preserved. Thank you all for playing and making Wordle an unforgettable experience.”

As of late, there have been no further updates on the paywall concerns, but currently, none have been introduced. So far it seems as though everyone can go on posting their wins (or their losses) on Twitter and clogging up your feed all free of charge!