Killer Questions - Favorite Word Games

 

Killer Questions – Favorite Word Games

Are you obsessed with playing word games on your phone? Most of the Writers Who Kill are, too. Here are our respective favorite games:

Molly MacRae: Boggle, Wordle, and a game my dad and I played where we’d trick each other into saying something that sounded like thank you so we could then say you’re welcome. It worked best if we let days or weeks or months go by to lull the other into unsuspecting. As an example, one day, I pretended to forget what armored vehicles are called and asked Dad, saying, “You know what I mean—the ones with the treads.” “Tanks,” Dad said. Dad started the game by giving me a math problem one day—“What’s 5Q plus 5Q?”  

Mary Dutta: The NY Times Spelling Bee and Wordle

Debra H. Goldstein: The NY Times Mini and Midi Crossword Puzzles and Wordle

Shari Randall: Every morning I do the Wordle, and my hubby and I do Connections at lunchtime. For group games, I adore Scrabble, and even though I don’t have a competitive bone in my body, if you play Scrabble with me, look out! I play to win.

Lori Roberts Herbst: Cryptogram. Addictive and fun.

Grace Topping: Scrapple

Korina Moss: I play the NY Times daily games – Connections, Wordle, and Letter Boxed. 

K.M. Rockwood: NYT crossword (not that I finish it often)

Margaret Hamilton: Pictionary

Elaine Douts: Word Search and Cryptograms in the weekly newspaper.

Susan Van Kirk: Connections and Strands (NYT)

Kait Carson: Wordle, Spelling Bee.

Sarah E. Burr: I do enjoy Wheel of Fortune, which I guess is a glorified Hangman.

Martha Reed: Completing my current manuscript (joke).

James M. Jackson: Wordle—when I remember to play.

Heather Weidner: Scrabble, Wordle, and crossword puzzles

Annette Dashofy: Wordle

Have You Discovered Wordle?

 

by Paula Gail Benson

A few weeks ago, I noticed my Facebook friends playing a puzzle game called Wordle. My aunt had been a great proponent of working puzzles and this one intrigued me. It involved a chart giving the player six attempts to come up with the selected daily five-letter word.

The player begins by selecting any five-letter word. The game generator then indicates if the letters in the player’s selection are within the daily word the player is trying to guess. If a letter on the chart turns green, it’s in the correct position in the daily word. If it turns yellow, it’s in the word, but at a different position. If it is gray, it’s not in the word.

With each new word, the player hopes to learn more about the letters and their positions in the daily word. When the player correctly guesses the daily word, he gets a score indicating how many attempts it took to reach the correct result. 3/6 means the player found the daily word on the third try.

The game was created by Brooklyn-based software engineer Josh Wardle as a gift in October 2021. (Some accounts indicate Wardle developed the game to entertain his partner, Palak Shah, during Covid.)

In November, 90 people played the game. By the middle of January, over 300,000 were playing it. Now, the daily players number in the millions.

So, who could be surprised that at the end of January the New York Times purchased Wordle for “the low seven figures” in an effort to build its digital readership to ten million by 2025?

Yes, Virginia, words matter. They can matter big time.

Initially, Josh Wardle identified 12,500 five-letter words. Palak Shah helped him whittle the list down to 2,500 more recognizable terms, which should keep players happy for a few years, although some have already protested that “REBUS” and “TAPIR” were too obscure.

Players’ strategies vary. For my initial guess, I like to select vowel heavy words, like “sepia” and “arose.” Some folks start out with the same initial word each time or with the winning word from the last round.

Next, I consider consonant combinations that occur at the beginning and ending of words, like “pl” or “nd.” Sometimes rhyming words help and other times they confuse me. I hate it when I know four of the five letters in order and there are too many rhymes to select from with the remaining tries.

If you’d like to build your skills, there is a free online version of Wordle for practicing. Also, apps are available that allow you to determine the number of letters you want to play. Some are timed, so you have to reach the correct solution within a prescribed period. Those make me a little nervous.

Maybe I’m a purist. I prefer Josh Wardle’s original concept, where it’s just you and your mind figuring out the puzzle.

Thanks, Josh and Palak, for giving all us word nerds a spiffy literary Valentine!    

Have you joined the Wordle world?