Wordle: The Viral Word Game Sweeping the Internet

Maybe you’ve seen as you’ve browsed through social platforms an old contact flaunting their attempt highlighted by a few scattered yellow and green squares. This is Wordle, a fresh online daily word challenge giving players six attempts to deduce the 5-letter word of the day.  It has rapidly gained fame and recognition in 2022, with the New York Times purchasing it this month from the creator for an amount “in the low seven figures”. Impressive (that’s 9 letters). 

For each guess, the puzzle provides hints about the correct letters using colors. After the player inputs their guess and presses enter, Wordle changes incorrect letters to grey, correct letters in the right spot to green, and correct letters in the wrong spot to yellow. It is akin to the word version of the color-strategy game Mastermind. Incorrect letters are greyed out below as they are guessed. It’s a basic invention, yet its straightforwardness is what makes it immensely popular. There’s no need to sign up or log in—just play, and then showcase your success on social media if you’re victorious. Unlike the noisy, ad-heavy games many often play, Wordle stimulates the linguistic and logical parts of the brain with a fresh challenge every day. Currently, the game boasts over 2 million players, created by Josh Wardle as a gift for his partner who enjoys word puzzles. 

The Wordle community itself is quite a marvel. With some investigation, you might uncover the solution, but its community seemingly respects the mystery, allowing individuals to find the answers independently. Moreover, since people can effortlessly share their outcomes—with just an image of the colored blocks, not the letters—on their social networks, the secret becomes even more enticing and drives the urge to outguess friends. The comprehensive list of 5-letter words contains roughly 2,500 words. The game remains free of monetization which enhances its simplicity, only needing a web browser to play. 

Given its fame and the instantly recognizable yellow, green, and grey blocks, Gift All Season has decided to join in on the fun. We’ve crafted a Christmas-themed word game ornament for you or any word game aficionado. This exquisite ornament is now available for pre-order and will arrive later this summer. On our Christmas ornament, “Santa” was a strong initial guess, but only the “s” was correct for the second guess. “Bells” came next, adding “e” and “l” to our correct letters, yet in incorrect spots. Our third guess, “Merry,” only confirmed “e” in the wrong position. We began to doubt our guessing skills but received more hints with “Claus” as our fourth guess. Despite its incorrectness, it clarified the positions of “l” and “s.” Thankfully, by our fifth guess, we cracked our first Christmas-themed word puzzle with five green blocks, and “Elves” was our successful guess. 

If you adore word puzzles, or know someone who is passionate about them, then don’t miss our latest, widely celebrated word game ornament from Gift All Season.