Wordle Quordle Dordle Nerdle

 

[There are times when one is tempted to use four-letter words when faced with a problem.  So, they created this five-letter version.  Here's my take on some of the interesting things that happened along the way as I, like many others, got "hooked".  Do leave a comment and let me know how you fared.]

This fascination for the five-letter word at the stroke of midnight has caught the imagination of entire generations, older ones included.  Wordle came into our lives surreptiously, insinuating itself into our consciousness without any fanfare.  Within minutes of a WhatsApp message sent innocuously by someone with his or her first winning streak, we, too, were hooked. There were a lot of nay-sayers who famously misquoted Shakespeare:  "What's in a game?", they asked as they sneakily searched for the answers themselves.  Within weeks there were user groups who discussed and argued about certain words, the most famous one being too many options with the same letter combos. They shouted "Unfair" at poor Josh.

Then there was the club of self-appointed Problem Solvers who happily informed everyone who would listen that the best way was to follow a plan involving vowels and the letter Y. After intensive research it was discovered that most words not written in an East European language require a vowel or two to survive. Computer nerds were not far behind. They found 'code' that could be 'decoded' (Right click and View Source) and proceeded to spoil your fun by generating programs that could do the work for you. 

And then the New York Times bought Wordle from Josh Wardle for an undisclosed sum. Fears of a paywall, an ad-infested experience, data collection (Google help our protected private lives) would all contribute to the NYT coffers while Josh would be left to waddle off to do new things. NYT did pop up a few links to other online games but the midnight eyeballs thought little of it as they tested their wits against the 5 truant letters.

But then came the me-toos.  And the me-fours.  And the me-neithers!

First off the block, sent by my friend Tubby, was Dordle - two Wordles in one frame!  Double delight! Short lived as Tubby discovered Quordle - a double double whammy! And just as we were getting used to doing things in ones, twos and fours I was subjected to Worldle - a weird thingy in which you had to work out the name of the country based on its silhouette.  I think it's gone away now, but for a while it was fun - if you enjoy Geography.  Or at least till you discover that the map silhouettes can be searched with Google Lens. 

Nerds decided that all this English Honours stuff (though restricted to five letters) had to be countered by more serious stuff.  And thus was born Nerdle.  Now you had to calculate lines of equations to make numerical sense and get the whole thing balanced.  Choices were combinations of digits 0 to 9, operations + - / x and the equal sign.  Brain strain! It survives to this day, but strictly for nerds. For the rest of us, there's a kind of puzzle called InstantNerdle - not to be confused with Maggi Instant Noodles - in which a line of numbers and signs were in disarray and you need to make math sense out of them. Good luck!

So, just when I was settling down to one Wordle and one Quordle a day, along comes a post on Facebook (or Meta, depends on your generation) that popped up a picture something like this:

The author went on to explain that he had completed 100 Wordles and he achieved a whole lot of milestones. Then I discovered an Achievements section in Quordle which had a lot more going for it.  There were all sorts of rewards that, even if you weren't consciously attempting, you would achieve anyway. It's like stubbing your toe on a stone that you didn't know was there.

I was so elated one night when I was told that I had scored an "Eagle". Well, being a great friend of a couple of golfers (Neil and Rajesh) I was happy enough to see that these scores were all named after the game.  But there were other names too. And it seemed pretty easy to have some sort of score on the board.  You could also score in Quordle by just practising!

The big revelation came when I discovered (to my competitive horror) that the birdies, eagles, pars and stuff were completely different on my mobile phone and on my laptop.  Does each device keep its own score? Of course it does since there are no cookies, no logins.

I checked with Amitava.  He's the go-to engineer who keeps motivating me to keep trying every day - we share scores, including the failures.  We discuss how difficult a particular set was. And we discuss ways in which we could possibly cheat. 

 

Cheat? You heard that right.  If you have a mobile phone and a laptop, well you try it out on one and then on the other .. and you share the better score. You have to be really bad at this to get them both wrong.  But then, if you have another laptop or phone, you can keep trying! And if all else fails, as we discovered, you can open an incognito window and try again! That sure takes the fun out of the game, doesn't it?

And now that I have spoilt your fun, let me say it's even more fun when you know you can find the answers in the back of the book, but you do not look.

Teachers have been known to recommend Wordle to increase a child's vocabulary. Seriously? Five letter words only?  It's like when Sudoku was thought to increase math ability - by symbol manipulation? Enthusiasts conclude that they have found a system to crack the code .. but it still can take them upto six moves. And coders have proclaimed that they can write lines of programming to solve Wordle without putting yourself through the joy of playing the game.  Intelligence? Artificial!

As I write this, I wonder what joy you get out of the daily wordle, quordle, nerdle or even Absurdle (it exists, look it up).  Do share.

Has anyone scored an Albatross yet?