Wordle: A daily word guessing game
December 24, 2021 9:49 AM Subscribe
Wordle is a daily word guessing game by artist, product manager, and engineer Josh Wardle. You have six tries to guess a five letter word. Each time, you get clues about the correct letters—if a letter is in the correct place, it turns green; if the letter is in the word but in the wrong place, it turns yellow; if it’s not in the word at all, it turns grey. You can play it here. And if you want, you can post an obscured version of your results on Twitter (just coloured squares, no letters revealed so you don’t spoil it for others) via a share button that generates an emoji.
I've been playing this over the course of a few weeks. It pairs wonderfully with the Snoozz chrome extension (which opens up a URL at defined intervals).
4pm, every single day, IS MY WORDLE TIME! It's been an absolute delight.
posted by a complicated history at 10:09 AM on December 24, 2021 [7 favorites]
4pm, every single day, IS MY WORDLE TIME! It's been an absolute delight.
posted by a complicated history at 10:09 AM on December 24, 2021 [7 favorites]
I went from “no way will I get this,” to solving it in only 5 tries. In hindsight, my starting word was a poor choice because it repeated two letters.
posted by Banknote of the year at 10:11 AM on December 24, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by Banknote of the year at 10:11 AM on December 24, 2021 [3 favorites]
The colour coding really helps in narrowing down the answer.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 10:16 AM on December 24, 2021 [4 favorites]
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 10:16 AM on December 24, 2021 [4 favorites]
Fun. it took me more tries to figure out the mechanics than it did to figure out the word once i did.
posted by OHenryPacey at 10:21 AM on December 24, 2021 [4 favorites]
posted by OHenryPacey at 10:21 AM on December 24, 2021 [4 favorites]
Got it in 5 tries. I am totally going to play this every day after Guess My Word.
posted by Daily Alice at 10:24 AM on December 24, 2021 [7 favorites]
posted by Daily Alice at 10:24 AM on December 24, 2021 [7 favorites]
My spouse and I play this together every day. Sometimes we get the answer in just enough tries so that the game congratulates us with "Impressive" or "Splendid" and we say it aloud to each other in a posh-type accent. I have started keeping a list of five-letter words for future use.
What I am saying is that this game is really fun.
posted by brainwane at 10:31 AM on December 24, 2021 [4 favorites]
What I am saying is that this game is really fun.
posted by brainwane at 10:31 AM on December 24, 2021 [4 favorites]
I love this idea but I wish it let you play through the backlogs. I'll come across this about once every six months or so, play it once, then forget it exists.
posted by JDHarper at 10:41 AM on December 24, 2021 [7 favorites]
posted by JDHarper at 10:41 AM on December 24, 2021 [7 favorites]
Third try! That was fun, and sure enough, I want more.
posted by armeowda at 10:42 AM on December 24, 2021
posted by armeowda at 10:42 AM on December 24, 2021
This is a great idea! The restriction to one word a day, though? Less great!
Anyway, I grew up on Mastermind and I love word games, so this is extremely my jam. Got today's on the second try! I'll bookmark it and maybe even remember it exists from time to time.
posted by dbx at 10:58 AM on December 24, 2021 [3 favorites]
Anyway, I grew up on Mastermind and I love word games, so this is extremely my jam. Got today's on the second try! I'll bookmark it and maybe even remember it exists from time to time.
posted by dbx at 10:58 AM on December 24, 2021 [3 favorites]
Not a bad idea; basically mastermind for words. Of course, I am terrible:
⬛⬛⬛⬛🟨
⬛🟩🟩🟩⬛
⬛🟩🟩🟩⬛
🟨🟩🟩🟩⬛
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Wordle 188 5/6
posted by pwnguin at 11:00 AM on December 24, 2021 [2 favorites]
⬛⬛⬛⬛🟨
⬛🟩🟩🟩⬛
⬛🟩🟩🟩⬛
🟨🟩🟩🟩⬛
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Wordle 188 5/6
posted by pwnguin at 11:00 AM on December 24, 2021 [2 favorites]
That was pretty fun, but we'll see if it will become a habit. One a day seems like an interesting idea to keep it fresh, and to keep everyone working on and talking about the same puzzle, but I'd probably need some people in my life to keep talking about it or some sort of automatic notifications to remember to make this a regular activity.
⬜🟨⬜⬜🟨
🟨⬜⬜🟨⬜
⬜⬜🟩🟩🟨
⬜🟩🟩🟩⬜
⬜🟩🟩🟩⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Wordle 188 6/6
posted by JiBB at 11:09 AM on December 24, 2021
⬜🟨⬜⬜🟨
🟨⬜⬜🟨⬜
⬜⬜🟩🟩🟨
⬜🟩🟩🟩⬜
⬜🟩🟩🟩⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Wordle 188 6/6
posted by JiBB at 11:09 AM on December 24, 2021
brainwane: My spouse and I play this together every day. Sometimes we get the answer in just enough tries so that the game congratulates us with "Impressive" or "Splendid" and we say it aloud to each other in a posh-type accent.
Ooh I want to see if I can achieve this the next time I play!
I love this game and agree it would be nice to be able to play the back catalogue like you can on Guess My Word.
pwnguin and JiBB, at first I forgot the results are emojis so I was like OMG METAFILTER HAS IMAGES AGAIN!
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 11:10 AM on December 24, 2021 [1 favorite]
Ooh I want to see if I can achieve this the next time I play!
I love this game and agree it would be nice to be able to play the back catalogue like you can on Guess My Word.
pwnguin and JiBB, at first I forgot the results are emojis so I was like OMG METAFILTER HAS IMAGES AGAIN!
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 11:10 AM on December 24, 2021 [1 favorite]
We've been doing this for a few weeks, and then got screwed by the fact that a letter was repeated. Which we hadn't seen happen before, and thought that was a restriction/rule.
posted by Windopaene at 11:17 AM on December 24, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by Windopaene at 11:17 AM on December 24, 2021 [2 favorites]
⬜⬜⬜⬜🟩
⬜⬜⬜🟨🟩
🟨⬜⬜🟩🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Wordle 188 4/6.
On the same page as JDHarper. I wish we could play the back catalog, and without that I am likely to forget this exists.
posted by freelanceastro at 11:21 AM on December 24, 2021
⬜⬜⬜🟨🟩
🟨⬜⬜🟩🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Wordle 188 4/6.
On the same page as JDHarper. I wish we could play the back catalog, and without that I am likely to forget this exists.
posted by freelanceastro at 11:21 AM on December 24, 2021
New Zealand Twitter has gone mad for this and every morning there is a little burst of people posting diagrams of how they went. It does seem a perfect balance of tricky and achievable.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 11:33 AM on December 24, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 11:33 AM on December 24, 2021 [1 favorite]
I've been following this game in development. It's a good little word game. The new share function with the squares is really great and probably is responsible for the game taking off right now.
Unfortunately I'm the kind of person who can't enjoy games like this if I can write software to solve them. Wordle is literally just grepping a word list for me. If you also want to suck the fun out of the game for yourself, read this post for the optimal first guess. The specific choice depends on the word list for the game; this one scraped the list out of the game code.
posted by Nelson at 11:37 AM on December 24, 2021 [5 favorites]
Unfortunately I'm the kind of person who can't enjoy games like this if I can write software to solve them. Wordle is literally just grepping a word list for me. If you also want to suck the fun out of the game for yourself, read this post for the optimal first guess. The specific choice depends on the word list for the game; this one scraped the list out of the game code.
posted by Nelson at 11:37 AM on December 24, 2021 [5 favorites]
⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛
⬛⬛🟩🟩🟨
⬛🟩🟩🟩⬛
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Why is there no option to play previous games?
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 11:43 AM on December 24, 2021 [2 favorites]
⬛⬛🟩🟩🟨
⬛🟩🟩🟩⬛
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Why is there no option to play previous games?
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 11:43 AM on December 24, 2021 [2 favorites]
⬜🟨🟩⬜⬜
⬜⬜🟩🟩⬜
⬜⬜🟩🟩🟨
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Wordle 188 4/6
I. Want. More.
posted by carmicha at 11:51 AM on December 24, 2021
⬜⬜🟩🟩⬜
⬜⬜🟩🟩🟨
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Wordle 188 4/6
I. Want. More.
posted by carmicha at 11:51 AM on December 24, 2021
⬜⬜🟩🟩🟨
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Wordle 188 2/6
I've been playing this every day on my work laptop, which I didn't have a reason to fire up today.
posted by emelenjr at 11:55 AM on December 24, 2021
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Wordle 188 2/6
I've been playing this every day on my work laptop, which I didn't have a reason to fire up today.
posted by emelenjr at 11:55 AM on December 24, 2021
I am totally going to play this every day after Guess My Word.
And before I play the NYT's Spelling Bee and Letter Boxed.
posted by box at 12:03 PM on December 24, 2021 [1 favorite]
And before I play the NYT's Spelling Bee and Letter Boxed.
posted by box at 12:03 PM on December 24, 2021 [1 favorite]
🟨🟩🟩⬜🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Weirdly good for a first try, haha. This is fun! I'll try to remember to add it to my crossword routine.
posted by potrzebie at 12:14 PM on December 24, 2021
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Weirdly good for a first try, haha. This is fun! I'll try to remember to add it to my crossword routine.
posted by potrzebie at 12:14 PM on December 24, 2021
I only wished it let me fill in letters not in order—at a certain point, I knew what had to be the fourth letter, and wished I could put it in there to help my brain find the rest of the word, before filling in the second and third letters.
I still got it on the next guess, so maybe I didn't need that as much as I thought I did.
posted by Well I never at 12:33 PM on December 24, 2021 [5 favorites]
I still got it on the next guess, so maybe I didn't need that as much as I thought I did.
posted by Well I never at 12:33 PM on December 24, 2021 [5 favorites]
So did somebody already say today's in one of the links and somehow my eyes passed over it and I noticed unconsciously? Because it was actually the first five letter word that came to mind and I put it down to my state of mind and didn't guess it because I thought "too many uncommon letters". It's weird though because I've never played this before.
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 12:42 PM on December 24, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 12:42 PM on December 24, 2021 [3 favorites]
well i never: I put in attempts without hitting enter so I could look at that very thing.
⬛⬛⬛⬛🟨
⬛🟩⬛⬛⬛
⬛🟩🟨⬛⬛
🟨🟩⬛🟨🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Wordle 188 5/6
posted by Mister Moofoo at 12:42 PM on December 24, 2021 [2 favorites]
⬛⬛⬛⬛🟨
⬛🟩⬛⬛⬛
⬛🟩🟨⬛⬛
🟨🟩⬛🟨🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Wordle 188 5/6
posted by Mister Moofoo at 12:42 PM on December 24, 2021 [2 favorites]
If I only had a penguin: check your memail.
posted by Mister Moofoo at 12:43 PM on December 24, 2021
posted by Mister Moofoo at 12:43 PM on December 24, 2021
Oh, this was fun.
Can this replace the NYTimes Spelling Bee thing as social media word game that gets posted relentlessly, this is more fun.
posted by the primroses were over at 12:48 PM on December 24, 2021 [1 favorite]
Can this replace the NYTimes Spelling Bee thing as social media word game that gets posted relentlessly, this is more fun.
posted by the primroses were over at 12:48 PM on December 24, 2021 [1 favorite]
I've been playing this every day with some friends of mine. I like it enough that I decided to make my own implementation that adds some features that I find desirable.
Basically I made the concept of "leagues", which are groups of players that you can join. Each league has a set of rules, which right now are:
* how many letters in the answer (default 5)
* how many puzzles/day (so you can do more than 1/day)
* how many days are in a series - since everyone is in a league and answers are tracked, you can have overall scores for a week or a month or whatever
* whether to enforce hard mode or not (this is where you have to pick words that obey the clues you've gotten instead of ignorning and entering an orthoganal guess to try to eliminate letters)
It is probably ~1 week from launch. Maybe I'll post in on Mefi projects when I do. Probably I shouldn't use Wordle in the name of it, but also it is pretty much a blatant ripoff. I'll contact the author and see what he thinks
(not that the game play is unique, I've seen it in various places, such as Twitch chat bots that let you play it in stream chat. But the name Wordle is unique to this one)
If you'd like to help beta-test it, memail me.
posted by RustyBrooks at 1:48 PM on December 24, 2021 [11 favorites]
Basically I made the concept of "leagues", which are groups of players that you can join. Each league has a set of rules, which right now are:
* how many letters in the answer (default 5)
* how many puzzles/day (so you can do more than 1/day)
* how many days are in a series - since everyone is in a league and answers are tracked, you can have overall scores for a week or a month or whatever
* whether to enforce hard mode or not (this is where you have to pick words that obey the clues you've gotten instead of ignorning and entering an orthoganal guess to try to eliminate letters)
It is probably ~1 week from launch. Maybe I'll post in on Mefi projects when I do. Probably I shouldn't use Wordle in the name of it, but also it is pretty much a blatant ripoff. I'll contact the author and see what he thinks
(not that the game play is unique, I've seen it in various places, such as Twitch chat bots that let you play it in stream chat. But the name Wordle is unique to this one)
If you'd like to help beta-test it, memail me.
posted by RustyBrooks at 1:48 PM on December 24, 2021 [11 favorites]
Oh, and of course, the main reason I wanted to do this is to make it easier to share your guesses with your friends. So once you've done a puzzle, you can see the results for anyone else who's finished it also automatically.
posted by RustyBrooks at 1:48 PM on December 24, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by RustyBrooks at 1:48 PM on December 24, 2021 [2 favorites]
got it in 4. fun.
⬜⬜🟨⬜🟩
⬜⬜🟨⬜⬜
⬜⬜⬜🟨⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Wordle 187 4/6
posted by signal at 1:49 PM on December 24, 2021
⬜⬜🟨⬜🟩
⬜⬜🟨⬜⬜
⬜⬜⬜🟨⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Wordle 187 4/6
posted by signal at 1:49 PM on December 24, 2021
Fun! Calling it dumb luck on this one.
🟩🟩⬜⬜⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Wordle 188 2/6
posted by obfuscation at 2:03 PM on December 24, 2021
🟩🟩⬜⬜⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Wordle 188 2/6
posted by obfuscation at 2:03 PM on December 24, 2021
Spoiler: There's a reason why today's word was so easy to guess.
posted by xigxag at 2:06 PM on December 24, 2021 [13 favorites]
posted by xigxag at 2:06 PM on December 24, 2021 [13 favorites]
its ok
I prefer to visit obscrue word of the day
I learn cool new words from 'lost rarely used' words
posted by robbyrobs at 2:08 PM on December 24, 2021 [1 favorite]
I prefer to visit obscrue word of the day
I learn cool new words from 'lost rarely used' words
posted by robbyrobs at 2:08 PM on December 24, 2021 [1 favorite]
So, here's a question: the pasteable results look great on my android phone in FF, not so great on my macbook in FF, safari or chrome. Is it an emoji thing?
posted by signal at 2:09 PM on December 24, 2021
posted by signal at 2:09 PM on December 24, 2021
Spoiler: There's a reason why today's word was so easy to guess.
Right?? I was able to guess in three tries because of that. I was thinking, “surely it couldn’t be,” and was bemused when it was.
posted by ejs at 2:11 PM on December 24, 2021 [1 favorite]
Right?? I was able to guess in three tries because of that. I was thinking, “surely it couldn’t be,” and was bemused when it was.
posted by ejs at 2:11 PM on December 24, 2021 [1 favorite]
And I mean “bemused” in the proper sense
posted by ejs at 2:12 PM on December 24, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by ejs at 2:12 PM on December 24, 2021 [1 favorite]
for here and now lets do the Christmas Quiz
GOOD LUCK!
posted by robbyrobs at 2:28 PM on December 24, 2021
GOOD LUCK!
posted by robbyrobs at 2:28 PM on December 24, 2021
Spoiler: There's a reason why today's word was so easy to guess.
I don't get it.
posted by Well I never at 2:37 PM on December 24, 2021
I don't get it.
posted by Well I never at 2:37 PM on December 24, 2021
⬜⬜🟨⬜⬜
🟩⬜🟨⬜🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Wordle 188 3/6
Cute. Pairs nicely with my Letterpress habit…
posted by progosk at 2:39 PM on December 24, 2021
🟩⬜🟨⬜🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Wordle 188 3/6
Cute. Pairs nicely with my Letterpress habit…
posted by progosk at 2:39 PM on December 24, 2021
I didn't realize we could post the emoji here!
⬜⬜🟩🟩⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Wordle 188 2/6
Oh cool it worked
posted by babelfish at 3:30 PM on December 24, 2021
⬜⬜🟩🟩⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Wordle 188 2/6
Oh cool it worked
posted by babelfish at 3:30 PM on December 24, 2021
This is extremely fun. An acquaintance of mine has written about strategies here, with code: https://po-ru.com/2021/12/24/ruining-the-fun-of-wordle-with-strategy - as with the other linked post above, gives hints.
posted by conkystconk at 3:42 PM on December 24, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by conkystconk at 3:42 PM on December 24, 2021 [1 favorite]
⬜⬜⬜⬜🟩
⬜⬜⬜⬜🟩
⬜⬜⬜⬜🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Wordle 189 4/6
nice. I like(d) this.
posted by bigendian at 4:05 PM on December 24, 2021 [1 favorite]
⬜⬜⬜⬜🟩
⬜⬜⬜⬜🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Wordle 189 4/6
nice. I like(d) this.
posted by bigendian at 4:05 PM on December 24, 2021 [1 favorite]
I am a bone head because I can't figure out how to get the emoji summary
posted by rebent at 4:09 PM on December 24, 2021
posted by rebent at 4:09 PM on December 24, 2021
I think you only get the emoji summary on the results popup and once you've clicked away from that, it's too late.
Anyway, thank you! This was fun. Also, I did it at 23:58, so I got the chance to do another one 2 minutes later, which was nice.
posted by ambrosen at 4:26 PM on December 24, 2021 [1 favorite]
Anyway, thank you! This was fun. Also, I did it at 23:58, so I got the chance to do another one 2 minutes later, which was nice.
posted by ambrosen at 4:26 PM on December 24, 2021 [1 favorite]
I am a bone head because I can't figure out how to get the emoji summary
It doesn't work on mobile. Or at least it didn't for me (but does on desktop).
posted by hoyland at 4:44 PM on December 24, 2021
It doesn't work on mobile. Or at least it didn't for me (but does on desktop).
posted by hoyland at 4:44 PM on December 24, 2021
I didn’t have any trouble getting the result emoji thing after closing the tab on mobile. I revisited the page and the overlay with the share button appeared automatically.
posted by Mister Moofoo at 4:52 PM on December 24, 2021
posted by Mister Moofoo at 4:52 PM on December 24, 2021
I was very confused because I thought the explanation of the rules on the site was actually clues for today’s game. Which both helped and hindered me.
posted by Night_owl at 6:34 PM on December 24, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by Night_owl at 6:34 PM on December 24, 2021 [1 favorite]
little disappointed to find out that the solution for the day is trivial to extract from the source code... but then I'm not going to because I do not desire the clout you'd get from cheating at Wordle
posted by Merus at 7:19 PM on December 24, 2021
posted by Merus at 7:19 PM on December 24, 2021
Why is there no option to play previous games?
There is .... just set your computer's clock back (or forwards)
posted by mbo at 7:25 PM on December 24, 2021 [2 favorites]
There is .... just set your computer's clock back (or forwards)
posted by mbo at 7:25 PM on December 24, 2021 [2 favorites]
Hint: There's a HackerNews thread where they find that "SOARE" is the best starting word
posted by mbo at 7:26 PM on December 24, 2021
posted by mbo at 7:26 PM on December 24, 2021
"STARE" is also reasonably good, by the same analysis, and doesn't feel quite as much like cheating
posted by Merus at 7:32 PM on December 24, 2021
posted by Merus at 7:32 PM on December 24, 2021
⬜🟩⬜⬜🟩
⬜⬜🟨🟨🟨
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
A lot of you folks are locking in the green letters once you have them and only guessing words with those letters in those spots; very inefficient!
posted by escabeche at 7:45 PM on December 24, 2021 [6 favorites]
⬜⬜🟨🟨🟨
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
A lot of you folks are locking in the green letters once you have them and only guessing words with those letters in those spots; very inefficient!
posted by escabeche at 7:45 PM on December 24, 2021 [6 favorites]
Got it on the third guess and scored an "Impressive!". But how do I post the color block thing?
posted by briank at 8:41 PM on December 24, 2021
posted by briank at 8:41 PM on December 24, 2021
⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛
🟨⬛⬛⬛⬛
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
My strategy (spoilers):
I used "STANE" as my first guess, because it was the first word I thought of that could be made from "etaoin shrdlu".
posted by The genius who rejected Anno's budget proposal. at 8:46 PM on December 24, 2021 [1 favorite]
🟨⬛⬛⬛⬛
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
My strategy (spoilers):
I used "STANE" as my first guess, because it was the first word I thought of that could be made from "etaoin shrdlu".
posted by The genius who rejected Anno's budget proposal. at 8:46 PM on December 24, 2021 [1 favorite]
briank, if you already closed your results page, you can just recreate it by copying and pasting other people's block emoji.
posted by The genius who rejected Anno's budget proposal. at 8:51 PM on December 24, 2021
posted by The genius who rejected Anno's budget proposal. at 8:51 PM on December 24, 2021
briank, if you already closed your results page, you can just recreate it by copying and pasting other people's block emoji.
Actually if you go back to the page on the same computer/same browser, it'll show you your solution as if you just did it, and you can copy then.
The emoji thing is cute but I like to see people's words, the thought process is nice and also lots of people, myself included, try choose words that tell stories or are funny together.
posted by RustyBrooks at 8:58 PM on December 24, 2021
Actually if you go back to the page on the same computer/same browser, it'll show you your solution as if you just did it, and you can copy then.
The emoji thing is cute but I like to see people's words, the thought process is nice and also lots of people, myself included, try choose words that tell stories or are funny together.
posted by RustyBrooks at 8:58 PM on December 24, 2021
Cool concept!
⬜🟨🟨⬜⬜
⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
⬜⬜⬜🟨🟨
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Wordle 189 4/6
posted by St. Oops at 8:59 PM on December 24, 2021
⬜🟨🟨⬜⬜
⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
⬜⬜⬜🟨🟨
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Wordle 189 4/6
posted by St. Oops at 8:59 PM on December 24, 2021
Hint: There's a HackerNews thread where they find that "SOARE" is the best starting word
So I had already started going down the same route as the author, but props to the author for using the actual dictionary instead of a good proxy. I wonder though if bert.org really nailed it; it seems like you want a divide and conquer method. Our goal isn't to find as many matches as possible, it's to rule out as many candidate words as possible going into the next guess, until only one remains (or we get lucky).
So for every possible guess you should calculate statistics on potential solutions count across every possible solution, and use that to decide. If your opponent is random, choose the one with the lowest average. If your opponent is adversarial, choose the one that minimizes the maximum possible solutions?
But then, if your opponent is known to be adversarial, you should just guess like JAZZY on the first go. And if they know that they should choose something else with randomness baked in, and iterating to convergence you just end up acting as the random opponent probably.
posted by pwnguin at 9:06 PM on December 24, 2021 [1 favorite]
So I had already started going down the same route as the author, but props to the author for using the actual dictionary instead of a good proxy. I wonder though if bert.org really nailed it; it seems like you want a divide and conquer method. Our goal isn't to find as many matches as possible, it's to rule out as many candidate words as possible going into the next guess, until only one remains (or we get lucky).
So for every possible guess you should calculate statistics on potential solutions count across every possible solution, and use that to decide. If your opponent is random, choose the one with the lowest average. If your opponent is adversarial, choose the one that minimizes the maximum possible solutions?
But then, if your opponent is known to be adversarial, you should just guess like JAZZY on the first go. And if they know that they should choose something else with randomness baked in, and iterating to convergence you just end up acting as the random opponent probably.
posted by pwnguin at 9:06 PM on December 24, 2021 [1 favorite]
⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
⬜🟩⬜⬜⬜
⬜🟩⬜⬜⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Wordle 188 4/6
This was fun!
posted by calgirl at 11:00 PM on December 24, 2021 [1 favorite]
⬜🟩⬜⬜⬜
⬜🟩⬜⬜⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Wordle 188 4/6
This was fun!
posted by calgirl at 11:00 PM on December 24, 2021 [1 favorite]
⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
⬜🟩⬜🟨⬜
⬜🟩🟩🟩🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Wordle 189 5/6
Rough start, but I got there. While I don't usually like onscreen keyboards, the colored keys are very helpful.
posted by box at 4:33 AM on December 25, 2021 [1 favorite]
⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
⬜🟩⬜🟨⬜
⬜🟩🟩🟩🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Wordle 189 5/6
Rough start, but I got there. While I don't usually like onscreen keyboards, the colored keys are very helpful.
posted by box at 4:33 AM on December 25, 2021 [1 favorite]
⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
🟩⬜⬜⬜⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Wordle 189 3/6
This was a much tougher one! I started out with lots of common letters and felt stymied when I got nothing! To be fair, it’s also early and I’m not sure my brain is up.
posted by obfuscation at 4:49 AM on December 25, 2021
🟩⬜⬜⬜⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Wordle 189 3/6
This was a much tougher one! I started out with lots of common letters and felt stymied when I got nothing! To be fair, it’s also early and I’m not sure my brain is up.
posted by obfuscation at 4:49 AM on December 25, 2021
Also I enjoy trying to figure out what people’s guesses we’re from the colored squares.
posted by obfuscation at 4:50 AM on December 25, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by obfuscation at 4:50 AM on December 25, 2021 [2 favorites]
⬛⬛⬛🟨⬛
⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛
⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Wordle 189 4/6
Pretty fun. I'll see how often I do it but it's enjoyable.
posted by skynxnex at 5:02 AM on December 25, 2021
⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛
⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Wordle 189 4/6
Pretty fun. I'll see how often I do it but it's enjoyable.
posted by skynxnex at 5:02 AM on December 25, 2021
I didn't quite understand the rules until midway through so on the first four tries only had only two letters. I solved it on try #5.
posted by JJ86 at 6:17 AM on December 25, 2021
posted by JJ86 at 6:17 AM on December 25, 2021
🟩⬛⬛⬛⬛
🟩⬛⬛⬛⬛
🟩⬛⬛🟨🟨
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Wordle 189 4/6
I was running out of letters on this one.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 6:42 AM on December 25, 2021
🟩⬛⬛⬛⬛
🟩⬛⬛🟨🟨
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Wordle 189 4/6
I was running out of letters on this one.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 6:42 AM on December 25, 2021
Ooh, fun!
◼️◼️◼️◼️◼️
◼️◼️◼️◼️◼️
🟨◼️🟨◼️🟨
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
I did *not* think I was getting that in four, but my first two guesses contained four vowels combined and no repeat letters, so it really did narrow the options!
posted by deludingmyself at 7:23 AM on December 25, 2021
◼️◼️◼️◼️◼️
◼️◼️◼️◼️◼️
🟨◼️🟨◼️🟨
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
I did *not* think I was getting that in four, but my first two guesses contained four vowels combined and no repeat letters, so it really did narrow the options!
posted by deludingmyself at 7:23 AM on December 25, 2021
This is fun, I want to do more!
⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛
⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛
⬛⬛⬛🟨🟨
🟩🟩⬛🟩🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Wordle 189 5/6
posted by pol at 11:03 AM on December 25, 2021
⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛
⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛
⬛⬛⬛🟨🟨
🟩🟩⬛🟩🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Wordle 189 5/6
posted by pol at 11:03 AM on December 25, 2021
⬜⬜⬜⬜🟩
⬜⬜⬜⬜🟩
⬜⬜🟩🟩🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Wordle 189 4/6
I feel like I had a pretty fortunate first guess this time, getting that final letter at the beginning helped quite a bit.
posted by egregious theorem at 11:12 AM on December 25, 2021
⬜⬜⬜⬜🟩
⬜⬜🟩🟩🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Wordle 189 4/6
I feel like I had a pretty fortunate first guess this time, getting that final letter at the beginning helped quite a bit.
posted by egregious theorem at 11:12 AM on December 25, 2021
Heh, a few months ago I got asked to write a Mastermind-beating algorithm as an interview question and spent a bit of time after the interview thinking about the best strategy, which ended with Knuth 77.
Knuth described a "minimax" algorithm for Mastermind that, crucially, demonstrates that you can do better by guessing patterns (words in this case) that are already ruled out as a way of testing more possibilities at once -- that is, the information you get from eliminating more letters is more valuable to you than the chance that you will guess the correct word right away.
All this is to say,
🟩⬜⬜⬜⬜
🟨⬜🟨⬜⬜
⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Wordle 189 4/6
posted by goingonit at 11:46 AM on December 25, 2021 [6 favorites]
Knuth described a "minimax" algorithm for Mastermind that, crucially, demonstrates that you can do better by guessing patterns (words in this case) that are already ruled out as a way of testing more possibilities at once -- that is, the information you get from eliminating more letters is more valuable to you than the chance that you will guess the correct word right away.
All this is to say,
🟩⬜⬜⬜⬜
🟨⬜🟨⬜⬜
⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Wordle 189 4/6
posted by goingonit at 11:46 AM on December 25, 2021 [6 favorites]
⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
🟩⬜🟨⬜⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Wordle 189 3/6
It finally told me I was impressive! Thank you for the validation, Wordle.
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 11:46 AM on December 25, 2021 [1 favorite]
🟩⬜🟨⬜⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Wordle 189 3/6
It finally told me I was impressive! Thank you for the validation, Wordle.
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 11:46 AM on December 25, 2021 [1 favorite]
⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛
⬛🟩⬛⬛🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Wordle 189 3/6
I have been addicted to this for weeks, and it made me smile to see this here so thank you for the post.
posted by blue suede stockings at 11:53 AM on December 25, 2021 [1 favorite]
⬛🟩⬛⬛🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Wordle 189 3/6
I have been addicted to this for weeks, and it made me smile to see this here so thank you for the post.
posted by blue suede stockings at 11:53 AM on December 25, 2021 [1 favorite]
⬛🟩⬛🟩⬛
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Wordle 189 2/6 in two. I dislike almost all games and sports but this fun. We play it over breakfast.
Thanks for posting hurdy gurdy girl
posted by unearthed at 12:48 PM on December 25, 2021 [1 favorite]
⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛
⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛
⬛🟩⬛⬛🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Well it's fun when you go through almost every vowel before getting a single letter.
posted by nushustu at 4:46 PM on December 25, 2021
⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛
⬛🟩⬛⬛🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Well it's fun when you go through almost every vowel before getting a single letter.
posted by nushustu at 4:46 PM on December 25, 2021
⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛
⬛⬛⬛⬛🟩
⬛⬛⬛🟨🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Wordle 189 4/6
This was so cool! And it feels bizarre that it happens so fast. What is it that I don't understand about words, or brains, or computers? Because I would have predicted it to take far more tries.
posted by feral_goldfish at 4:56 PM on December 25, 2021 [1 favorite]
⬛⬛⬛⬛🟩
⬛⬛⬛🟨🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Wordle 189 4/6
This was so cool! And it feels bizarre that it happens so fast. What is it that I don't understand about words, or brains, or computers? Because I would have predicted it to take far more tries.
posted by feral_goldfish at 4:56 PM on December 25, 2021 [1 favorite]
⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛
🟩⬛🟨⬛⬛
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Wordle 189 3/6
Fun! I didn’t expect to get it so fast and I’m curious to see how I do over time.
posted by Pater Aletheias at 5:49 PM on December 25, 2021
🟩⬛🟨⬛⬛
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Wordle 189 3/6
Fun! I didn’t expect to get it so fast and I’m curious to see how I do over time.
posted by Pater Aletheias at 5:49 PM on December 25, 2021
⬛🟩🟨⬛🟨
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Wordle 190 2/6 Magnificent!
Got totally hung up on this one, so I gave up and went to shower, which of course did the trick, accidentally. Why do puzzle solutions so often appear in the shower? When I was working on my dissertation it happened so often I kept pen and paper on the windowsill, where I would stand and scribble, cold and wet. If I'm ever in a position to endow a student scholarship, I'll be sure to throw in a bathroom fan-heater.
A lot of you folks are locking in the green letters once you have them and only guessing words with those letters in those spots; very inefficient!
Ahem. Not if you want to score a 2.
posted by feral_goldfish at 11:29 PM on December 25, 2021 [3 favorites]
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Wordle 190 2/6 Magnificent!
Got totally hung up on this one, so I gave up and went to shower, which of course did the trick, accidentally. Why do puzzle solutions so often appear in the shower? When I was working on my dissertation it happened so often I kept pen and paper on the windowsill, where I would stand and scribble, cold and wet. If I'm ever in a position to endow a student scholarship, I'll be sure to throw in a bathroom fan-heater.
A lot of you folks are locking in the green letters once you have them and only guessing words with those letters in those spots; very inefficient!
Ahem. Not if you want to score a 2.
posted by feral_goldfish at 11:29 PM on December 25, 2021 [3 favorites]
🟨🟨⬜⬜⬜
🟩⬜🟨🟨⬜
🟩⬜🟨🟩⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Wordle 190 4/6
Neat game, and the share function is a really neat feature too.
A lot of you folks are locking in the green letters once you have them and only guessing words with those letters in those spots; very inefficient!
Worth noting that in the settings, there is a Hard Mode toggle that forces you to use any revealed hints so far, so the makers of the game did think of this! (It also incidentally confirms that yes, everyone locking in the green letters and guessing from there are doing it the hard way. Feels more satisfying so maybe I'll hit that toggle!)
posted by chrominance at 12:21 AM on December 26, 2021 [2 favorites]
🟩⬜🟨🟨⬜
🟩⬜🟨🟩⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Wordle 190 4/6
Neat game, and the share function is a really neat feature too.
A lot of you folks are locking in the green letters once you have them and only guessing words with those letters in those spots; very inefficient!
Worth noting that in the settings, there is a Hard Mode toggle that forces you to use any revealed hints so far, so the makers of the game did think of this! (It also incidentally confirms that yes, everyone locking in the green letters and guessing from there are doing it the hard way. Feels more satisfying so maybe I'll hit that toggle!)
posted by chrominance at 12:21 AM on December 26, 2021 [2 favorites]
⬜⬜🟨⬜⬜
⬜🟨🟨🟨⬜
⬜⬜⬜🟨⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Wordle 190 4/6
Can't guess inefficiently by locking in the green letters if you never get any green letters *taps head*
posted by egregious theorem at 6:27 AM on December 26, 2021 [2 favorites]
⬜🟨🟨🟨⬜
⬜⬜⬜🟨⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Wordle 190 4/6
Can't guess inefficiently by locking in the green letters if you never get any green letters *taps head*
posted by egregious theorem at 6:27 AM on December 26, 2021 [2 favorites]
⬛⬛⬛⬛🟩
⬛🟨🟨⬛🟩
⬛⬛🟨🟩🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Wordle 190 4/6
4 seems to be when everything clicks for me.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 6:54 AM on December 26, 2021 [1 favorite]
⬛🟨🟨⬛🟩
⬛⬛🟨🟩🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Wordle 190 4/6
4 seems to be when everything clicks for me.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 6:54 AM on December 26, 2021 [1 favorite]
⬛🟨🟨⬛⬛
⬛🟨⬛⬛⬛
⬛⬛⬛⬛🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Wordle 190 4/6
I was very stumped after my third guess. Took a break looked at it and the right answer popped into my head and luckily it was!
posted by skynxnex at 11:46 AM on December 26, 2021
⬛🟨⬛⬛⬛
⬛⬛⬛⬛🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Wordle 190 4/6
I was very stumped after my third guess. Took a break looked at it and the right answer popped into my head and luckily it was!
posted by skynxnex at 11:46 AM on December 26, 2021
goingonit: what a good interview question!
The thing that makes this game more interesting (to me) than Mastermind is that all of the guesses have to be real words. If you lock in the letters, that definitely adds the extra challenge.
posted by montag2k at 12:30 PM on December 26, 2021
The thing that makes this game more interesting (to me) than Mastermind is that all of the guesses have to be real words. If you lock in the letters, that definitely adds the extra challenge.
posted by montag2k at 12:30 PM on December 26, 2021
We used to play a version of this as a bar game with a napkin-I had forgotten all about that. Thanks!
posted by purenitrous at 7:45 PM on December 26, 2021
posted by purenitrous at 7:45 PM on December 26, 2021
I wasn't kidding about being popular in New Zealand.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 12:47 AM on December 27, 2021
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 12:47 AM on December 27, 2021
Ah, letters can repeat.
posted by St. Oops at 3:18 AM on December 27, 2021 [6 favorites]
posted by St. Oops at 3:18 AM on December 27, 2021 [6 favorites]
⬜⬜⬜⬜🟨
⬜⬜🟩⬜⬜
⬜⬜🟩🟨⬜
⬜🟩🟩⬜🟩
⬜🟩🟩⬜🟩
⬜🟩🟩🟩🟩
Wordle 191 6/6
Whoops. There goes my one-day streak.
posted by chrominance at 8:33 AM on December 27, 2021
⬜⬜🟩⬜⬜
⬜⬜🟩🟨⬜
⬜🟩🟩⬜🟩
⬜🟩🟩⬜🟩
⬜🟩🟩🟩🟩
Wordle 191 6/6
Whoops. There goes my one-day streak.
posted by chrominance at 8:33 AM on December 27, 2021
From a CS point of view I think the real words constraint just means a subset of valid strings, and the letter frequency strategy is basically trying to compress the information in that set as a search heuristic.
Which makes me wonder but I don't know, if wordle and mastermind might be reducible to each other or not. Mastermind is generally NP-complete so I'd guess that any algorithm for that is doing a SAT-like search maybe with some pruning heuristics.
posted by polymodus at 12:35 PM on December 27, 2021
Which makes me wonder but I don't know, if wordle and mastermind might be reducible to each other or not. Mastermind is generally NP-complete so I'd guess that any algorithm for that is doing a SAT-like search maybe with some pruning heuristics.
posted by polymodus at 12:35 PM on December 27, 2021
Today's wordle was tricky, I got so many black letters! But one thing I find fun is just thinking of first words other than the optimal one.
The other day I used SAUCE as the starting word. And today I reused yesterday's solution because it has 3 vowels and common consonants in it.
posted by polymodus at 12:39 PM on December 27, 2021
The other day I used SAUCE as the starting word. And today I reused yesterday's solution because it has 3 vowels and common consonants in it.
posted by polymodus at 12:39 PM on December 27, 2021
🟩⬛⬛⬛⬛
🟩🟨⬛⬛🟨
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Wordle 191 3/6
The solution for me was a bit of a shot in the dark because I wasn't sure if it would be allowed.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 2:06 PM on December 27, 2021 [1 favorite]
🟩🟨⬛⬛🟨
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Wordle 191 3/6
The solution for me was a bit of a shot in the dark because I wasn't sure if it would be allowed.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 2:06 PM on December 27, 2021 [1 favorite]
polymodus: trivially, Mastermind is reducible to Wordle with a very boring dictionary. Coming up with a good heuristic algorithm for either that runs in O(n^2) of the dictionary size (a la Knuth 77 as I mentioned previously) is relatively simple, and such an algorithm is guaranteed to win Mastermind in 5 moves. On the other hand, exploring the entire game tree is much less tractable.
The optimal brute-force worst-case solution -- store the entire game tree and pick the shallowest branch at every stage -- is easy to describe but intractable even for "plain" Mastermind. Ville 2013 uses branch pruning and exploits symmetries to optimally solve an expanded version of Mastermind with an extra color; the symmetry strategy wouldn't work for Wordle, however, as the dictionary is not symmetrical. Wordle's dictionary is likely larger (/usr/share/dict/words on my Mac has 8497 5-letter non-proper-noun entries), and both the larger alphabet and "gappy" dictionary probably make the tree deeper too (since the "⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛" bucket will be pretty big for the initial few guesses). So it is not clear to me if a truly-optimal solution for Wordle is tractable in-memory on your desktop.
Depending on how bored I am this evening, I might code up a Knuth-style algorithm for Wordle and seeing what the "hardest" possible word is for this strategy, at least using my computer's dictionary...
posted by goingonit at 2:24 PM on December 27, 2021 [2 favorites]
The optimal brute-force worst-case solution -- store the entire game tree and pick the shallowest branch at every stage -- is easy to describe but intractable even for "plain" Mastermind. Ville 2013 uses branch pruning and exploits symmetries to optimally solve an expanded version of Mastermind with an extra color; the symmetry strategy wouldn't work for Wordle, however, as the dictionary is not symmetrical. Wordle's dictionary is likely larger (/usr/share/dict/words on my Mac has 8497 5-letter non-proper-noun entries), and both the larger alphabet and "gappy" dictionary probably make the tree deeper too (since the "⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛" bucket will be pretty big for the initial few guesses). So it is not clear to me if a truly-optimal solution for Wordle is tractable in-memory on your desktop.
Depending on how bored I am this evening, I might code up a Knuth-style algorithm for Wordle and seeing what the "hardest" possible word is for this strategy, at least using my computer's dictionary...
posted by goingonit at 2:24 PM on December 27, 2021 [2 favorites]
...and now as I sit down to code I realize that there is another key difference, which is that Wordle tells you which letters are in the right spot, but Mastermind doesn't, so not in fact trivially reducible.
posted by goingonit at 6:31 PM on December 27, 2021
posted by goingonit at 6:31 PM on December 27, 2021
So I coded the Knuth-heuristic solution for Wordle. In case anyone's curious, the hardest words aren't the ones with weird letters, because you can distinguish them pretty quickly. The hardest words are the ones with lots of common letters because you will get yellow squares all day without getting much closer. With a medium-sized dictionary (e.g. from here, which contains ~5k 5-letter words), the hardest word to get is BASES, which can take 7 guesses (ALOES, FRUMP, VETCH, BADGE, ANKHS, BABES, BASES). ALOES alone gets you down to 89 unique words, but distinguishing between them takes forever.
I am curious if there's a better heuristic to be found that doesn't use insanely more compute time/memory...
posted by goingonit at 8:46 PM on December 27, 2021 [3 favorites]
I am curious if there's a better heuristic to be found that doesn't use insanely more compute time/memory...
posted by goingonit at 8:46 PM on December 27, 2021 [3 favorites]
⬛⬛🟩🟨🟨
🟨⬛🟩🟩🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Wordle 192 3/6
I’ve been trying to use a new starting word each day. This one worked out well for me.
posted by Night_owl at 10:35 PM on December 27, 2021
🟨⬛🟩🟩🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Wordle 192 3/6
I’ve been trying to use a new starting word each day. This one worked out well for me.
posted by Night_owl at 10:35 PM on December 27, 2021
Whoever said that this is like the old game Mastermind was right.
Wordle 192 3/6
🟨⬜🟨⬜🟩
🟩🟩⬜🟨🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
posted by Sphinx at 9:25 AM on December 28, 2021
Wordle 192 3/6
🟨⬜🟨⬜🟩
🟩🟩⬜🟨🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
posted by Sphinx at 9:25 AM on December 28, 2021
So it is not clear to me if a truly-optimal solution for Wordle is tractable in-memory on your desktop.
I don't work in the area anymore but I would guess the state-of-the-art approach is to use a modern SAT solver, the effort being coming up with a suitable encoding. The dictionary is also reducible to a boolean constraint. Actually come to think of it, a SAT solver is probably the only sane way to deal with arbitrarily large n board sizes and parameters.
posted by polymodus at 3:18 PM on December 28, 2021
I don't work in the area anymore but I would guess the state-of-the-art approach is to use a modern SAT solver, the effort being coming up with a suitable encoding. The dictionary is also reducible to a boolean constraint. Actually come to think of it, a SAT solver is probably the only sane way to deal with arbitrarily large n board sizes and parameters.
posted by polymodus at 3:18 PM on December 28, 2021
So the NP-complete version of Mastermind is the "satisfiability problem": given a series of guesses, does there exist a solution that satisfies the guesses? And this (and the analogous Wordle satisfiability problem) could be fed to a SAT solver. But this is not the same thing as finding an optimal strategy.
The decision problem for finding an optimal strategy is something like: given a dictionary D, does there exist a strategy that can solve any possible word in K moves or fewer?
Interestingly, it seems to me that this problem is in NP for Wordle but not for mastermind!
The description of a strategy is a tree of guesses such that every vertex of the tree is a guess, every edge is a set of "feedback squares" that could be returned in response to that guess, and every dictionary word is uniquely represented by a leaf of the tree. The length of this strategy description is O(n) in the length of the dictionary and its acceptability (i.e., its max depth) could be verified in linear time. However, in Mastermind, the input is not a dictionary but rather just two numbers: the length and the number of colors! Thus the length of the output is exponential in the size of the input and the problem cannot be in NP.
A reduction from SAT to prove NP-completeness for the Wordle variant is left as an exercise to the reader ;-)
posted by goingonit at 7:03 PM on December 28, 2021
The decision problem for finding an optimal strategy is something like: given a dictionary D, does there exist a strategy that can solve any possible word in K moves or fewer?
Interestingly, it seems to me that this problem is in NP for Wordle but not for mastermind!
The description of a strategy is a tree of guesses such that every vertex of the tree is a guess, every edge is a set of "feedback squares" that could be returned in response to that guess, and every dictionary word is uniquely represented by a leaf of the tree. The length of this strategy description is O(n) in the length of the dictionary and its acceptability (i.e., its max depth) could be verified in linear time. However, in Mastermind, the input is not a dictionary but rather just two numbers: the length and the number of colors! Thus the length of the output is exponential in the size of the input and the problem cannot be in NP.
A reduction from SAT to prove NP-completeness for the Wordle variant is left as an exercise to the reader ;-)
posted by goingonit at 7:03 PM on December 28, 2021
Wordle 193 6/6
🟨⬜⬜⬜⬜
⬜⬜🟨🟨⬜
⬜🟨🟨🟨⬜
⬜⬜🟨🟨⬜
⬜🟩🟨🟨🟨
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Tough one for me, I only sort of knew this was a word at all.
posted by chrominance at 2:47 AM on December 29, 2021
🟨⬜⬜⬜⬜
⬜⬜🟨🟨⬜
⬜🟨🟨🟨⬜
⬜⬜🟨🟨⬜
⬜🟩🟨🟨🟨
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Tough one for me, I only sort of knew this was a word at all.
posted by chrominance at 2:47 AM on December 29, 2021
Wordle 193 3/6
⬜⬜🟨⬜⬜
🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Just popping in again to thank you for posting this! I've added it to my morning routine and will be just devastated the day my win streak ends. Looking forward to it!
posted by the primroses were over at 4:10 AM on December 29, 2021 [2 favorites]
⬜⬜🟨⬜⬜
🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Just popping in again to thank you for posting this! I've added it to my morning routine and will be just devastated the day my win streak ends. Looking forward to it!
posted by the primroses were over at 4:10 AM on December 29, 2021 [2 favorites]
Wordle 193 5/6
⬜⬜🟨🟨⬜
🟩🟩⬜⬜⬜
🟩🟩⬜⬜⬜
🟩🟩🟨⬜⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Didn't see that one coming.
posted by box at 4:29 AM on December 29, 2021
⬜⬜🟨🟨⬜
🟩🟩⬜⬜⬜
🟩🟩⬜⬜⬜
🟩🟩🟨⬜⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Didn't see that one coming.
posted by box at 4:29 AM on December 29, 2021
Wordle 193 4/6
🟨⬛🟨⬛⬛
⬛🟨🟨⬛🟨
⬛🟩🟨🟨⬛
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
When they’re this obscure, I’m always delighted and somewhat mystified at the ability of my brain to pull it out anyway.
the primroses were over, the end of my streak (after months) finally came with a word with too many possible answers (even after locking in 3 correct “green” letter+placements very early on), which I also found amusing!
posted by blue suede stockings at 4:37 AM on December 29, 2021 [1 favorite]
🟨⬛🟨⬛⬛
⬛🟨🟨⬛🟨
⬛🟩🟨🟨⬛
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
When they’re this obscure, I’m always delighted and somewhat mystified at the ability of my brain to pull it out anyway.
the primroses were over, the end of my streak (after months) finally came with a word with too many possible answers (even after locking in 3 correct “green” letter+placements very early on), which I also found amusing!
posted by blue suede stockings at 4:37 AM on December 29, 2021 [1 favorite]
Wordle 193 3/6
🟨⬜🟨⬜⬜
🟨⬜⬜🟨⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Today's word made me happy!
posted by mixedmetaphors at 5:38 AM on December 29, 2021
🟨⬜🟨⬜⬜
🟨⬜⬜🟨⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Today's word made me happy!
posted by mixedmetaphors at 5:38 AM on December 29, 2021
Wordle 193 5/6
⬛🟨🟨⬛⬛
🟨⬛🟨🟩⬛
🟨⬛🟩🟩⬛
🟨⬛🟩🟩🟨
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
This one was tough.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 12:25 PM on December 29, 2021
⬛🟨🟨⬛⬛
🟨⬛🟨🟩⬛
🟨⬛🟩🟩⬛
🟨⬛🟩🟩🟨
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
This one was tough.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 12:25 PM on December 29, 2021
Wordle 194 4/6
⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
⬜⬜🟩🟨⬜
⬜🟨🟩🟨⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
A fun bit of insight and a bit of a leap got me to the right word here.
posted by chrominance at 10:01 PM on December 29, 2021
⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
⬜⬜🟩🟨⬜
⬜🟨🟩🟨⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
A fun bit of insight and a bit of a leap got me to the right word here.
posted by chrominance at 10:01 PM on December 29, 2021
Wordle 194 5/6
🟩⬜⬜⬜⬜
🟩⬜🟨🟨⬜
🟩🟩🟩⬜⬜
🟩🟩🟩⬜⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Yeah, they did that.
posted by box at 4:36 AM on December 30, 2021
🟩⬜⬜⬜⬜
🟩⬜🟨🟨⬜
🟩🟩🟩⬜⬜
🟩🟩🟩⬜⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Yeah, they did that.
posted by box at 4:36 AM on December 30, 2021
Wordle 194 3/6
🟨⬛⬛⬛⬛
⬛⬛🟩🟨🟨
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
I didn't think it would be the solution but I couldn't think of anything else.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 10:33 AM on December 30, 2021
🟨⬛⬛⬛⬛
⬛⬛🟩🟨🟨
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
I didn't think it would be the solution but I couldn't think of anything else.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 10:33 AM on December 30, 2021
Didn’t realize you could use the same letter twice, which made it take a lot longer than it would otherwise, but I did get there in the end.
I showed my partner and they said, “Oh, it’s Mastermind but with words. I hate that. That’s evil.”
One of us really enjoys Mastermind and the other does not.
posted by brook horse at 8:41 PM on December 30, 2021 [1 favorite]
I showed my partner and they said, “Oh, it’s Mastermind but with words. I hate that. That’s evil.”
One of us really enjoys Mastermind and the other does not.
posted by brook horse at 8:41 PM on December 30, 2021 [1 favorite]
Ok, I'm pretty proud of myself for getting this one. It was hard.
Wordle 195 5/6
⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
⬜⬜🟩⬜⬜
⬜🟨🟨⬜⬜
🟨🟨⬜⬜⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 9:04 PM on December 30, 2021
Wordle 195 5/6
⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
⬜⬜🟩⬜⬜
⬜🟨🟨⬜⬜
🟨🟨⬜⬜⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 9:04 PM on December 30, 2021
Wordle 195 3/6
⬛⬛🟩🟨⬛
🟩🟩🟩⬛⬛
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
I had to stare at it for so long to figure out what the two remaining letters could be.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 9:24 PM on December 30, 2021 [1 favorite]
⬛⬛🟩🟨⬛
🟩🟩🟩⬛⬛
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
I had to stare at it for so long to figure out what the two remaining letters could be.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 9:24 PM on December 30, 2021 [1 favorite]
Wordle 195 3/6
⬛🟩🟩🟩⬛
⬛🟩🟩🟩⬛
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
this was so obvious after 10min of omg there can't be that many combinaisons
posted by mephisjo at 10:29 PM on December 30, 2021
⬛🟩🟩🟩⬛
⬛🟩🟩🟩⬛
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
this was so obvious after 10min of omg there can't be that many combinaisons
posted by mephisjo at 10:29 PM on December 30, 2021
Wordle 195 3/6
⬜⬜⬜🟨⬜
⬜🟨⬜⬜⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Basically I got the exact two letters I needed to make a guess somehow. This one was pretty wild.
posted by chrominance at 12:51 AM on December 31, 2021 [1 favorite]
⬜⬜⬜🟨⬜
⬜🟨⬜⬜⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Basically I got the exact two letters I needed to make a guess somehow. This one was pretty wild.
posted by chrominance at 12:51 AM on December 31, 2021 [1 favorite]
(Also, not to abuse the edit feature: kinda neat that Wordle encodes whether you use dark mode or not in the emojis. If you use dark mode, the wrong letters are black; if not, they're white instead.)
posted by chrominance at 12:52 AM on December 31, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by chrominance at 12:52 AM on December 31, 2021 [1 favorite]
Wordle 195 4/6
⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
⬜⬜🟨⬜⬜
⬜🟨⬜⬜🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Are they doing that NYT crossword thing where the puzzles get more difficult from Monday through Sunday? It kinda feels like it, but I'm not sure.
posted by box at 6:32 AM on December 31, 2021
⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
⬜⬜🟨⬜⬜
⬜🟨⬜⬜🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Are they doing that NYT crossword thing where the puzzles get more difficult from Monday through Sunday? It kinda feels like it, but I'm not sure.
posted by box at 6:32 AM on December 31, 2021
No algorithm can guarantee to solve Wordle every time, within the 6-guess limit. The Wordle dictionary contains the following sets of words which differ only by one letter: *OUND (8 possibilities), *IGHT (8x, excluding TIGHT), and SHA*E (7x)
Worked example: assume the solution is WOUND, and your (fortunate) first guess is BOUND. The game reports ⬜🟩🟩🟩🟩. There are 7 possibilities (F, H, M, P, R, S, W) for the first letter, and you only have 5 remaining guesses and no further information, so no algorithm can guarantee to find the solution without relying on luck.
That said, algorithmically solving Wordle at least 85-95% of the time is not too hard.
posted by Klipspringer at 3:00 PM on December 31, 2021 [4 favorites]
Worked example: assume the solution is WOUND, and your (fortunate) first guess is BOUND. The game reports ⬜🟩🟩🟩🟩. There are 7 possibilities (F, H, M, P, R, S, W) for the first letter, and you only have 5 remaining guesses and no further information, so no algorithm can guarantee to find the solution without relying on luck.
That said, algorithmically solving Wordle at least 85-95% of the time is not too hard.
posted by Klipspringer at 3:00 PM on December 31, 2021 [4 favorites]
SHADE SHAKE SHALE SHAME SHAPE SHARE SHAVE
That was oddly satisfying.
posted by box at 5:09 PM on December 31, 2021 [1 favorite]
That was oddly satisfying.
posted by box at 5:09 PM on December 31, 2021 [1 favorite]
*IGHT (8x, excluding TIGHT)
Repeated letters are permitted, so that makes 9 total.
Also, that's only in hard mode: you can eliminate multiple letters in one word if you're not doing that, so if you get ⬜🟩🟩🟩🟩 for LIGHT, you can put STERN next to find or eliminate SIGHT, TIGHT, EIGHT, RIGHT and NIGHT, then WOMBS to find WIGHT, MIGHT or BIGHT.
I'm not 100% sure you can definitely get there in less than 6 and multiplex the letter elimination for all the highly variable single letter gaps, but that's how you'd do it with *IGHT.
posted by ambrosen at 5:31 PM on December 31, 2021 [4 favorites]
Repeated letters are permitted, so that makes 9 total.
Also, that's only in hard mode: you can eliminate multiple letters in one word if you're not doing that, so if you get ⬜🟩🟩🟩🟩 for LIGHT, you can put STERN next to find or eliminate SIGHT, TIGHT, EIGHT, RIGHT and NIGHT, then WOMBS to find WIGHT, MIGHT or BIGHT.
I'm not 100% sure you can definitely get there in less than 6 and multiplex the letter elimination for all the highly variable single letter gaps, but that's how you'd do it with *IGHT.
posted by ambrosen at 5:31 PM on December 31, 2021 [4 favorites]
ambrosen: ah, both good points!
posted by Klipspringer at 5:48 PM on December 31, 2021
posted by Klipspringer at 5:48 PM on December 31, 2021
There are 7 possibilities (F, H, M, P, R, S, W) for the first letter, and you only have 5 remaining guesses and no further information, so no algorithm can guarantee to find the solution without relying on luck.
I would think the key is to pick words with lots of those letters..Shrew has half of them. I would think an algorithm would find the best words to narrow this down pretty easily.
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 6:14 PM on December 31, 2021 [1 favorite]
I would think the key is to pick words with lots of those letters..Shrew has half of them. I would think an algorithm would find the best words to narrow this down pretty easily.
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 6:14 PM on December 31, 2021 [1 favorite]
Wordle 196 5/6
⬜⬜⬜🟨⬜
⬜🟨⬜⬜⬜
🟩⬜⬜⬜🟨
🟩🟩⬜⬜🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Derail into silly US gameshow discussion ahoy: I'm more of a Jeopardy! person than Wheel of Fortune (is that like cat or dog person?), but playing this has made me much more sympathetic to the contestants always buying vowels. Even when there are consonants they should be able to easily guess, drives me batty! But I almost always start this game with a 3 vowel word, and I think going with only 2 slowed me down today. So perhaps the contestants are more strategic than I give them credit for.
posted by the primroses were over at 4:42 AM on January 1, 2022
⬜⬜⬜🟨⬜
⬜🟨⬜⬜⬜
🟩⬜⬜⬜🟨
🟩🟩⬜⬜🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Derail into silly US gameshow discussion ahoy: I'm more of a Jeopardy! person than Wheel of Fortune (is that like cat or dog person?), but playing this has made me much more sympathetic to the contestants always buying vowels. Even when there are consonants they should be able to easily guess, drives me batty! But I almost always start this game with a 3 vowel word, and I think going with only 2 slowed me down today. So perhaps the contestants are more strategic than I give them credit for.
posted by the primroses were over at 4:42 AM on January 1, 2022
Ouch, lol— textbook example of “too many possibilities,” especially for the initial configuration correctly guessed (I believe if I had guessed the fourth letter at any point I would have had an easier time of landing on it in time)
Wordle 196 X/6
🟩🟩⬛⬛🟩
🟩🟩⬛⬛🟩
🟩🟩⬛⬛🟩
🟩🟩⬛⬛🟩
🟩🟩⬛⬛🟩
🟩🟩⬛⬛🟩
posted by blue suede stockings at 6:44 AM on January 1, 2022 [1 favorite]
Wordle 196 X/6
🟩🟩⬛⬛🟩
🟩🟩⬛⬛🟩
🟩🟩⬛⬛🟩
🟩🟩⬛⬛🟩
🟩🟩⬛⬛🟩
🟩🟩⬛⬛🟩
posted by blue suede stockings at 6:44 AM on January 1, 2022 [1 favorite]
Yes, in easy mode you can guaranteed get there in 6 guaranteed (5 actually) using the algorithm I described above above IF you seed it with Wordle's actual dictionary.
posted by goingonit at 8:29 AM on January 1, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by goingonit at 8:29 AM on January 1, 2022 [1 favorite]
Wordle 196 2/6
🟩🟩⬜⬜🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Lucky guess on #2.
posted by tonycpsu at 3:58 PM on January 1, 2022 [2 favorites]
🟩🟩⬜⬜🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Lucky guess on #2.
posted by tonycpsu at 3:58 PM on January 1, 2022 [2 favorites]
However, in Mastermind, the input is not a dictionary but rather just two numbers: the length and the number of colors!
The problem is since Mastermind is generalized by n being the width of the board, the corresponding generalization is the length of the word in Wordl. The dictionary is just an added constraint, you could just as say certain signals or color patterns are disallowed in Mastermind. In both games would still be an exponential space to cover in n.
I did do a bit more paper browsing and it is conjectured that Mastermind is P-SPACE complete, so I think it would be the same for a corresponding generalization of Wordl. Again I don't see anything special about a dictionary, it could just be function in either game that tells you if some sequence is allowed or not.
posted by polymodus at 4:32 PM on January 1, 2022
The problem is since Mastermind is generalized by n being the width of the board, the corresponding generalization is the length of the word in Wordl. The dictionary is just an added constraint, you could just as say certain signals or color patterns are disallowed in Mastermind. In both games would still be an exponential space to cover in n.
I did do a bit more paper browsing and it is conjectured that Mastermind is P-SPACE complete, so I think it would be the same for a corresponding generalization of Wordl. Again I don't see anything special about a dictionary, it could just be function in either game that tells you if some sequence is allowed or not.
posted by polymodus at 4:32 PM on January 1, 2022
Just a thought that occurred, if the dictionary is all the possible strings then you'd be playing Mastermind again. Is that right? So the definition of n is an important technicality.
posted by polymodus at 4:45 PM on January 1, 2022
posted by polymodus at 4:45 PM on January 1, 2022
oh well can you tell i've been rewatching Hannibal
Wordle 197 5/6
⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛
⬛⬛⬛⬛🟨
⬛🟩⬛🟨⬛
⬛🟩⬛🟩🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
posted by mephisjo at 11:10 PM on January 1, 2022 [1 favorite]
Wordle 197 5/6
⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛
⬛⬛⬛⬛🟨
⬛🟩⬛🟨⬛
⬛🟩⬛🟩🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
L I V E R
H Y M N S
A O R T A
R O A S T
B O O S T
H Y M N S
A O R T A
R O A S T
B O O S T
posted by mephisjo at 11:10 PM on January 1, 2022 [1 favorite]
Maybe someone will find the below rule clarifications useful:
- The solution word may contain multiple occurrences of the same letter. For example, the solution word may be "PIPER".
- If you get the position of a letter right, and if the same letter occurs elsewhere in the solution word, then the algorithm will only tell you about the position you've actually guessed. For example, if the correct word is "PIPER" and your guess is "SUPER", then the algorithm will confirm that the solution word ends with "PER", but it will not tell you anything about the first "P".
If you want to play Wordle more than once a day, and have Python and a modern terminal app, give wordle-cli a whirl.
wordle-cli 198 4/6
⬛⬛⬛⬛🟩
⬛🟩⬛⬛⬛
⬛🟨🟨⬛⬛
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Let me know if anything's broken, it's only been tested in bash and PowerShell.
posted by Klipspringer at 7:11 PM on January 2, 2022 [6 favorites]
./play.py --todaywordle-cli 198 4/6
⬛⬛⬛⬛🟩
⬛🟩⬛⬛⬛
⬛🟨🟨⬛⬛
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Let me know if anything's broken, it's only been tested in bash and PowerShell.
posted by Klipspringer at 7:11 PM on January 2, 2022 [6 favorites]
> Let me know if anything's broken, it's only been tested in bash and PowerShell.
Love it! One nit to pick: the NOTPRESENT state doesn't show up so well on a terminal with a black background, so some customization / theme setup would be great.
posted by tonycpsu at 9:07 PM on January 2, 2022 [1 favorite]
Love it! One nit to pick: the NOTPRESENT state doesn't show up so well on a terminal with a black background, so some customization / theme setup would be great.
posted by tonycpsu at 9:07 PM on January 2, 2022 [1 favorite]
Wordle 198 6/6
⬜⬜⬜⬜🟩
⬜⬜⬜🟨🟩
🟨🟨⬜⬜🟩
⬜🟨🟨⬜🟩
🟨🟨🟨🟨🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Down to the wire.
posted by box at 4:46 AM on January 3, 2022
⬜⬜⬜⬜🟩
⬜⬜⬜🟨🟩
🟨🟨⬜⬜🟩
⬜🟨🟨⬜🟩
🟨🟨🟨🟨🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Down to the wire.
posted by box at 4:46 AM on January 3, 2022
He Made Wordle for His Partner. Now It’s an Online Hit. (NYTimes.)
posted by Nelson at 10:54 AM on January 3, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by Nelson at 10:54 AM on January 3, 2022 [2 favorites]
tonycpsu: some customization / theme setup would be great.
Done!
posted by Klipspringer at 12:25 PM on January 3, 2022
Done!
posted by Klipspringer at 12:25 PM on January 3, 2022
I think the analysis that bert.org does is a little unsophisticated. What you really want to look at is how your guess segments the possible solutions into different sets, and calculate the amount of information each guess gets you.
I ran the numbers on the sowpods list (i didn't extract the actual game list). Ironically, "soare" is still the highest- ranked word with that method. It's feels less like cheating to use "raise", which is a close 3rd.
posted by Horselover Fat at 4:09 PM on January 3, 2022 [1 favorite]
I ran the numbers on the sowpods list (i didn't extract the actual game list). Ironically, "soare" is still the highest- ranked word with that method. It's feels less like cheating to use "raise", which is a close 3rd.
posted by Horselover Fat at 4:09 PM on January 3, 2022 [1 favorite]
Belated thank you for sharing this! Mornings are WORDLE TIME for me and Kitteh and it's been very enjoyable.
posted by Shepherd at 4:25 AM on January 4, 2022
posted by Shepherd at 4:25 AM on January 4, 2022
Wordle 199 X/6
🟩⬜🟩⬜⬜
🟩⬜🟩🟨⬜
🟩🟨🟩⬜⬜
🟩⬜🟩🟨⬜
🟩⬜🟩⬜🟩
🟩🟩🟩⬜🟩
Didn't quite make it.
posted by box at 4:43 AM on January 4, 2022
🟩⬜🟩⬜⬜
🟩⬜🟩🟨⬜
🟩🟨🟩⬜⬜
🟩⬜🟩🟨⬜
🟩⬜🟩⬜🟩
🟩🟩🟩⬜🟩
Didn't quite make it.
posted by box at 4:43 AM on January 4, 2022
Today was a toughie.
wordle-cli 199 5/6
⬛🟩⬛🟨🟨
🟩🟩⬛🟨🟨
🟩🟩⬛🟨⬛
🟩🟩🟩⬛🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
posted by Klipspringer at 5:56 AM on January 4, 2022
wordle-cli 199 5/6
⬛🟩⬛🟨🟨
🟩🟩⬛🟨🟨
🟩🟩⬛🟨⬛
🟩🟩🟩⬛🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
posted by Klipspringer at 5:56 AM on January 4, 2022
goingonit: Yes, in easy mode you can guaranteed get there in 6 guaranteed (5 actually) using the algorithm I described above above IF you seed it with Wordle's actual dictionary.
What about if the algorithm only has the list of
12,972 valid guesses?
posted by Klipspringer at 7:11 AM on January 4, 2022
What about if the algorithm only has the list of
12,972 valid guesses?
posted by Klipspringer at 7:11 AM on January 4, 2022
Wordle 199 4/6
⬜⬜🟨⬜🟩
🟩⬜⬜⬜🟩
🟩🟩⬜⬜🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
I "cheated" on my second guess and didn't use the yellow letter. There's a tension between trying to guess the right word and not wanting to waste a chance to eliminate letters. The worst is on words that use the same letter twice because there's usually another word that'll fit that doesn't repeat letters and I feel like I should be guessing that instead.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 6:19 PM on January 4, 2022
⬜⬜🟨⬜🟩
🟩⬜⬜⬜🟩
🟩🟩⬜⬜🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
I "cheated" on my second guess and didn't use the yellow letter. There's a tension between trying to guess the right word and not wanting to waste a chance to eliminate letters. The worst is on words that use the same letter twice because there's usually another word that'll fit that doesn't repeat letters and I feel like I should be guessing that instead.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 6:19 PM on January 4, 2022
Wordle 199 3/6
⬜⬜🟨🟨🟩
⬜⬜🟨⬜⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
I've had a lot of success recently with the initial word i mentioned above, and a second guess that covers the other vowels. I've been lucky enough to hit consonants and be able to deduce letter positions that I've solved it in 3 the last few days.
I know what you mean by that tension. For me it only becomes a factor around guess 4 on. You'll hopefully get useful info, but you know you'll need another turn to solve it.
posted by Horselover Fat at 7:04 PM on January 4, 2022
⬜⬜🟨🟨🟩
⬜⬜🟨⬜⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
I've had a lot of success recently with the initial word i mentioned above, and a second guess that covers the other vowels. I've been lucky enough to hit consonants and be able to deduce letter positions that I've solved it in 3 the last few days.
I know what you mean by that tension. For me it only becomes a factor around guess 4 on. You'll hopefully get useful info, but you know you'll need another turn to solve it.
posted by Horselover Fat at 7:04 PM on January 4, 2022
I've been using opine as my starting word. It definitely isn't the best word to use but it has worked pretty well so far.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 8:24 PM on January 4, 2022
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 8:24 PM on January 4, 2022
This made my day and my year!
Wordle 200 4/6
⬛⬛⬛🟨🟨
🟨🟨⬛🟨⬛
🟩⬛🟨🟨🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Yes
YES
The *word* is out
posted by mephisjo at 9:46 PM on January 4, 2022 [3 favorites]
Wordle 200 4/6
⬛⬛⬛🟨🟨
🟨🟨⬛🟨⬛
🟩⬛🟨🟨🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Yes
YES
The *word* is out
posted by mephisjo at 9:46 PM on January 4, 2022 [3 favorites]
Wordle 200 5/6
⬜⬜⬜🟨🟨
⬜🟨🟨⬜⬜
⬜🟩🟨🟩⬜
⬜🟩🟨🟩🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
I tried "SNORE" as my opening word today for funsies, but I'm leaning more and more into ADIEU, because (unproven and possibly wrong) that second-last-letter-E seems to be super common, and important to lock in if I can. Lots of ___ED, ET, ER, ES, EN words out there.
posted by Shepherd at 4:37 AM on January 5, 2022
⬜⬜⬜🟨🟨
⬜🟨🟨⬜⬜
⬜🟩🟨🟩⬜
⬜🟩🟨🟩🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
I tried "SNORE" as my opening word today for funsies, but I'm leaning more and more into ADIEU, because (unproven and possibly wrong) that second-last-letter-E seems to be super common, and important to lock in if I can. Lots of ___ED, ET, ER, ES, EN words out there.
posted by Shepherd at 4:37 AM on January 5, 2022
Wordle 200 6/6
⬜⬜🟨⬜⬜
🟨⬜⬜🟨⬜
🟩🟨⬜⬜⬜
🟩⬜🟨🟩⬜
🟩🟩⬜🟩⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
I'm not that good at this.
posted by box at 4:42 AM on January 5, 2022
⬜⬜🟨⬜⬜
🟨⬜⬜🟨⬜
🟩🟨⬜⬜⬜
🟩⬜🟨🟩⬜
🟩🟩⬜🟩⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
I'm not that good at this.
posted by box at 4:42 AM on January 5, 2022
Wordle 200 6/6
⬜⬜🟨⬜⬜
⬜⬜🟨⬜🟨
🟨⬜⬜🟨⬜
⬜🟨🟨⬜⬜
⬜🟩🟨🟩🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Ohhhh that was close. Today was the first time I had two realistically viable possibilities for Guess #6, but I guessed right.
posted by mixedmetaphors at 5:41 AM on January 5, 2022 [1 favorite]
⬜⬜🟨⬜⬜
⬜⬜🟨⬜🟨
🟨⬜⬜🟨⬜
⬜🟨🟨⬜⬜
⬜🟩🟨🟩🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Ohhhh that was close. Today was the first time I had two realistically viable possibilities for Guess #6, but I guessed right.
posted by mixedmetaphors at 5:41 AM on January 5, 2022 [1 favorite]
BBC: Wordle creator promises viral game will stay simple and ad-free
posted by oulipian at 8:26 AM on January 5, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by oulipian at 8:26 AM on January 5, 2022 [1 favorite]
My household got "magnificent" today!!!!
posted by brainwane at 9:35 AM on January 5, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by brainwane at 9:35 AM on January 5, 2022 [1 favorite]
(That is, we got the answer in 2 tries, so the little info box said "magnificent" when all the squares turned green.)
You could not previously get the shareable emoji in Firefox on Android because Firefox on Android did not support the Web Share API. But this is now fixed on Wordle's end, so if you're solving the puzzle on your Android phone using Firefox, then once it's solved, click the Share button and you'll get a "copied to clipboard" message. Then you can share that in a text/Signal message, on social media, etc. It'll be the emoji plus the "World 200 2/6" (or similar) text.
posted by brainwane at 9:48 AM on January 5, 2022
You could not previously get the shareable emoji in Firefox on Android because Firefox on Android did not support the Web Share API. But this is now fixed on Wordle's end, so if you're solving the puzzle on your Android phone using Firefox, then once it's solved, click the Share button and you'll get a "copied to clipboard" message. Then you can share that in a text/Signal message, on social media, etc. It'll be the emoji plus the "World 200 2/6" (or similar) text.
posted by brainwane at 9:48 AM on January 5, 2022
My friend has a three year old and they were watching a Certain Children’s Show today, and that seeded her brain to get it on the first guess! It was very exciting for all of us. Took me a little longer.
Wordle 200 5/6
⬜⬜🟨🟩⬜
🟩⬜⬜🟩🟩
🟩⬜⬜🟩🟩
🟩⬜🟨🟩🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
posted by obfuscation at 2:32 PM on January 5, 2022 [1 favorite]
Wordle 200 5/6
⬜⬜🟨🟩⬜
🟩⬜⬜🟩🟩
🟩⬜⬜🟩🟩
🟩⬜🟨🟩🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
posted by obfuscation at 2:32 PM on January 5, 2022 [1 favorite]
By using preset values for early guesses, followed by Knuth's minimax algorithm described above, Wordle can be solved within six guesses for every possible solution, in a reasonable time — even if the algorithm is guessing from the full list of valid guesses, rather than being constrained to only guess from the list of solutions. That last condition makes it a much harder challenge, but a fair comparison with the game human players are playing.
I tried with the first three guesses fixed to FILES PRANG DUTCH (taken from Paul Battley's blog). This preset list may not minimise the number of guesses, but it does solve within six every time.
posted by Klipspringer at 8:28 AM on January 6, 2022 [1 favorite]
I tried with the first three guesses fixed to FILES PRANG DUTCH (taken from Paul Battley's blog). This preset list may not minimise the number of guesses, but it does solve within six every time.
Iterating 2315 solution(s), with 12972 valid guesses in dictionary and 3 presets: FILES, PRANG, DUTCH 2315 games, 2315 wins (100.0%), 0 losses (0.0%) average: 4.5 guesses round 1: 0 wins (0.0%), most common guess: FILES (2315) round 2: 5 wins (0.2%), most common guess: PRANG (2310) round 3: 142 wins (6.1%), most common guess: DUTCH (2169) round 4: 1058 wins (45.7%), most common guess: ABAMP (19) round 5: 1013 wins (43.8%), most common guess: AMOWT (3) round 6: 97 wins (4.2%), most common guess: CLOVE (1) real 99m21.624s user 99m8.048s sys 0m6.034sCould be significantly optimised, this is just Python running on an antiquated laptop.
posted by Klipspringer at 8:28 AM on January 6, 2022 [1 favorite]
Today was interesting for me:
Wordle 201 4/6
⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛
⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛
🟩🟩🟨⬛⬛
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
posted by Night_owl at 1:32 PM on January 6, 2022
Wordle 201 4/6
⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛
⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛
🟩🟩🟨⬛⬛
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
posted by Night_owl at 1:32 PM on January 6, 2022
First game worked out well!
Wordle 201 2/6
⬜⬜⬜⬜🟨
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
posted by UhOhChongo! at 8:40 PM on January 6, 2022 [3 favorites]
Wordle 201 2/6
⬜⬜⬜⬜🟨
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
posted by UhOhChongo! at 8:40 PM on January 6, 2022 [3 favorites]
Wordle 202 3/6
⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
⬜⬜⬜🟨🟨
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
got it in three, but I didn't notice the game telling me I was impressive or anything. Maybe because UhOhChongo! had just been there. Gee, THANKS A LOT, UhOhChongo!
posted by taz at 1:35 AM on January 7, 2022 [1 favorite]
⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
⬜⬜⬜🟨🟨
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
got it in three, but I didn't notice the game telling me I was impressive or anything. Maybe because UhOhChongo! had just been there. Gee, THANKS A LOT, UhOhChongo!
posted by taz at 1:35 AM on January 7, 2022 [1 favorite]
Wordle 202 4/6
🟩⬜⬜⬜⬜
🟩🟨⬜⬜⬜
🟩⬜🟨⬜⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
That was a fun one
posted by JDHarper at 4:56 AM on January 7, 2022
🟩⬜⬜⬜⬜
🟩🟨⬜⬜⬜
🟩⬜🟨⬜⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
That was a fun one
posted by JDHarper at 4:56 AM on January 7, 2022
I am really enjoying this game (15 day streak!!), but I find everyone posting their results so enjoyable as well. Just looking at all those rows of progressively greener boxes is strangely soothing.
posted by mixedmetaphors at 6:56 AM on January 7, 2022
posted by mixedmetaphors at 6:56 AM on January 7, 2022
I'm late to the party - have been playing not quite a week yet - but I've been doing well deliberately not playing on "hard" mode (whether officially via the settings or self-imposed), so guesses do not have to be consistent with previous information. I haven't looked at any of the "strategy" articles, but my self-developed strategy has been:
Using this strategy, getting today's word was particularly satisfying:
Wordle 202 4/6
⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
🟨⬜⬜⬜🟨
🟨🟨⬜⬜⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 9:50 AM on January 7, 2022
1. EARTH/HEART
2*. LIONS
3*. PUDGY
* Depending on how much information I have from previous guesses. Usually once I have four (sometimes three) letters I'll go "off-script."
This covers all vowels, including Y, and and 8 of the 9 most common consonants (according to the "Dictionaries" ranking here). Of course it's important to keep in mind the possibility of duplicate letters.
2*. LIONS
3*. PUDGY
* Depending on how much information I have from previous guesses. Usually once I have four (sometimes three) letters I'll go "off-script."
This covers all vowels, including Y, and and 8 of the 9 most common consonants (according to the "Dictionaries" ranking here). Of course it's important to keep in mind the possibility of duplicate letters.
Using this strategy, getting today's word was particularly satisfying:
Wordle 202 4/6
⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
🟨⬜⬜⬜🟨
🟨🟨⬜⬜⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 9:50 AM on January 7, 2022
No algorithm can guarantee to solve [hard-mode] Wordle every time, within the 6-guess limit. The Wordle dictionary contains the following sets of words which differ only by one letter: *OUND (8 possibilities), *IGHT (8x, excluding TIGHT), and SHA*E (7x)
This doesn't necessarily mean that there's no hard-mode strategy which guarantees a win; only that such a strategy, if one exists, cannot start with *OUND, *IGHT, or SHA*E.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 10:12 AM on January 7, 2022
This doesn't necessarily mean that there's no hard-mode strategy which guarantees a win; only that such a strategy, if one exists, cannot start with *OUND, *IGHT, or SHA*E.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 10:12 AM on January 7, 2022
The Wordle dictionary contains the following sets of words
Do we know what the actual Wordle dictionary is? Klipspringer, you mention in the readme that wordle-cli uses the official Wordle dictionary - where did you find that?
(Also, Klipspringer, thank you! Or rather no thank you, since I've wasted a good few hours with it already....)
posted by trig at 2:26 PM on January 7, 2022
Do we know what the actual Wordle dictionary is? Klipspringer, you mention in the readme that wordle-cli uses the official Wordle dictionary - where did you find that?
(Also, Klipspringer, thank you! Or rather no thank you, since I've wasted a good few hours with it already....)
posted by trig at 2:26 PM on January 7, 2022
Wordle 202 4/6
⬛🟨⬛⬛⬛
🟨⬛⬛⬛🟨
🟨🟨🟨⬛🟨
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 2:36 PM on January 7, 2022
⬛🟨⬛⬛⬛
🟨⬛⬛⬛🟨
🟨🟨🟨⬛🟨
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 2:36 PM on January 7, 2022
trig: you're welcome, glad it's being used!
Wordle's dictionaries of valid guesses and solutions are in its JavaScript source — find the js linked at the bottom of the HTML source. Solutions (spoilers!) are in variable Aa. Valid guesses are the combination of Aa and La. To save you stripping the commas and quotes, here are text files. Again, guesses = solutions.txt + guesses.txt.
posted by Klipspringer at 6:47 PM on January 7, 2022
Wordle's dictionaries of valid guesses and solutions are in its JavaScript source — find the js linked at the bottom of the HTML source. Solutions (spoilers!) are in variable Aa. Valid guesses are the combination of Aa and La. To save you stripping the commas and quotes, here are text files. Again, guesses = solutions.txt + guesses.txt.
posted by Klipspringer at 6:47 PM on January 7, 2022
Wordle 203 3/6
⬛🟩🟩⬛⬛
⬛🟩🟩⬛⬛
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
I think this was the quickest I have ever done.
posted by mephisjo at 9:03 PM on January 7, 2022
⬛🟩🟩⬛⬛
⬛🟩🟩⬛⬛
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
I think this was the quickest I have ever done.
posted by mephisjo at 9:03 PM on January 7, 2022
Wordle 203 4/6
⬜⬜⬜🟨⬜
🟩🟩⬜🟨⬜
🟩🟩🟩⬜⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
That was satisfying.
posted by box at 6:14 AM on January 8, 2022
⬜⬜⬜🟨⬜
🟩🟩⬜🟨⬜
🟩🟩🟩⬜⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
That was satisfying.
posted by box at 6:14 AM on January 8, 2022
On picking the first Wordle word (The Ringer)
posted by box at 11:13 AM on January 8, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by box at 11:13 AM on January 8, 2022 [1 favorite]
My first 6/6 today, after a good run of 3s and 4s:
Wordle 203 6/6
⬛⬛⬛🟨⬛
⬛⬛⬛🟩⬛
⬛🟩🟩🟩🟩
⬛🟩🟩🟩🟩
⬛🟩🟩🟩🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
posted by Mister Moofoo at 12:05 PM on January 8, 2022
Wordle 203 6/6
⬛⬛⬛🟨⬛
⬛⬛⬛🟩⬛
⬛🟩🟩🟩🟩
⬛🟩🟩🟩🟩
⬛🟩🟩🟩🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
posted by Mister Moofoo at 12:05 PM on January 8, 2022
Now you can play Wordle in Te Reo Māori. And follow along on #ngāiPanga. One interesting thing is all the tweets from folks who only know a little Māori, it's a sort of teaching game. I wonder if the same exact English game rules make for a good game or if they need tweaking. Māori has 10 consonants and 10 vowels and a fairly rigid set of consonant/vowel patterns for syllables.
posted by Nelson at 12:17 PM on January 8, 2022
posted by Nelson at 12:17 PM on January 8, 2022
Adversarial Wordle. By qntm, author of the excellent SCP Foundation-inspired scifi novel There Is No Antimemetics Division. Which I highly recommend reading without any more information, if you are someone who likes twisty mindfuck paranormal stuff.
posted by Nelson at 6:10 PM on January 8, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by Nelson at 6:10 PM on January 8, 2022 [3 favorites]
Wordle 204 5/6
🟨⬛⬛⬛🟩
⬛⬛🟨🟨🟩
🟨🟩🟨⬛🟩
⬛🟩🟩🟩🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
I was mentally going through the alphabet for my final guess.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 9:50 AM on January 9, 2022 [1 favorite]
🟨⬛⬛⬛🟩
⬛⬛🟨🟨🟩
🟨🟩🟨⬛🟩
⬛🟩🟩🟩🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
I was mentally going through the alphabet for my final guess.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 9:50 AM on January 9, 2022 [1 favorite]
THE PHYSICAL MANIFESTATION OF WURDLE POUNDS MY BUTT AS A SLIGHTLY FRUSTRATING BUT ULTIMATELY REWARDING AND MEDITATIVE DAILY ROUTINE
posted by Nelson at 3:59 PM on January 9, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by Nelson at 3:59 PM on January 9, 2022 [3 favorites]
Wordle 205 4/6
⬜⬜⬜🟨🟨
⬜🟩🟩⬜⬜
🟩🟩🟩⬜⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
That was a fun trip.
posted by box at 4:22 AM on January 10, 2022
⬜⬜⬜🟨🟨
⬜🟩🟩⬜⬜
🟩🟩🟩⬜⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
That was a fun trip.
posted by box at 4:22 AM on January 10, 2022
Been playing every day and haven't choked yet, though there have been some very close calls. I wish there was a way to login as it can't track streaks across devices otherwise.
Also, I found an interesting variant:
Evil Wordle
posted by Rhaomi at 8:26 AM on January 10, 2022 [3 favorites]
Also, I found an interesting variant:
Evil Wordle
How does it work?It also has a "non-evil" mode, but be warned that it can spoil the once-a-day magic as you can play as many times as you want.
There's no word set by default. Every time you guess, I look at all possible 5-letter words that would fit all your guesses, and choose the match pattern that results in the most possible words. The goal is to maximize the amount of guesses it takes to find the word.
posted by Rhaomi at 8:26 AM on January 10, 2022 [3 favorites]
Wordle 205 5/6
⬛⬛⬛⬛🟨
🟨🟨⬛⬛⬛
⬛🟨⬛🟨🟨
⬛🟩⬛🟨🟨
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
This one was tough.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 12:18 PM on January 10, 2022
⬛⬛⬛⬛🟨
🟨🟨⬛⬛⬛
⬛🟨⬛🟨🟨
⬛🟩⬛🟨🟨
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
This one was tough.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 12:18 PM on January 10, 2022
Wordle 206 4/6
⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
⬜🟨🟨⬜🟨
🟩⬜🟩🟩⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Could've been three.
posted by box at 4:50 AM on January 11, 2022
⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
⬜🟨🟨⬜🟨
🟩⬜🟩🟩⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Could've been three.
posted by box at 4:50 AM on January 11, 2022
Mchelly: "When Wordle gets too easy, now there's Letterle"
Letterle 3/26
⬜
⬜
🟩
I'm just that good.
posted by signal at 1:05 PM on January 11, 2022 [1 favorite]
Letterle 3/26
⬜
⬜
🟩
I'm just that good.
posted by signal at 1:05 PM on January 11, 2022 [1 favorite]
Letterle 22/26
⬜
⬜
⬜
⬜
⬜
⬜
⬜
⬜
⬜
⬜
⬜
⬜
⬜
⬜
⬜
⬜
⬜
⬜
⬜
⬜
⬜
🟩
https://edjefferson.com/letterle/
Couldn't quite make it to 26
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 6:48 PM on January 11, 2022 [1 favorite]
⬜
⬜
⬜
⬜
⬜
⬜
⬜
⬜
⬜
⬜
⬜
⬜
⬜
⬜
⬜
⬜
⬜
⬜
⬜
⬜
⬜
🟩
https://edjefferson.com/letterle/
Couldn't quite make it to 26
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 6:48 PM on January 11, 2022 [1 favorite]
Wordle 207 6/6
🟨⬜🟨⬜⬜
⬜🟩⬜🟨⬜
🟨🟩⬜⬜⬜
⬜🟩⬜⬜⬜
⬜🟩🟨🟩⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
That wasn't pretty.
posted by box at 4:27 AM on January 12, 2022
🟨⬜🟨⬜⬜
⬜🟩⬜🟨⬜
🟨🟩⬜⬜⬜
⬜🟩⬜⬜⬜
⬜🟩🟨🟩⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
That wasn't pretty.
posted by box at 4:27 AM on January 12, 2022
Here is a remake of Wordle which lets you play as often as you wish.
posted by WalkingAround at 6:37 AM on January 12, 2022
posted by WalkingAround at 6:37 AM on January 12, 2022
The Verge: Wordle copycat creator apologies for ripping off the popular free word game
posted by tonycpsu at 11:22 AM on January 12, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by tonycpsu at 11:22 AM on January 12, 2022 [1 favorite]
Wordle copycat creator apologies for ripping off the popular free word game
Community response
posted by pwnguin at 11:43 AM on January 12, 2022
Community response
posted by pwnguin at 11:43 AM on January 12, 2022
My sister took all six guesses to get to today's answer, which she says prompted the response "phew" from the game. I would be in agreement with that response if it came down to the wire, but she felt it was offensive -
posted by the primroses were over at 8:19 AM on January 13, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by the primroses were over at 8:19 AM on January 13, 2022 [1 favorite]
Shoot, fat fingers, posted too soofinISh wanted to ask what it tells you if you strike out entirely? Please satisfy my curiosity so I don't have to sacrificemy meager win streak to find out. :)
posted by the primroses were over at 8:21 AM on January 13, 2022
posted by the primroses were over at 8:21 AM on January 13, 2022
If you lose, the message is just the solution word, no adjective.
If your first guess happened, by pure chance, to be the solution, then it says GENIUS — which is a bit generous.
posted by Klipspringer at 8:35 AM on January 13, 2022
If your first guess happened, by pure chance, to be the solution, then it says GENIUS — which is a bit generous.
posted by Klipspringer at 8:35 AM on January 13, 2022
Thank you! I am solidly mediocre at this so have not yet achieved either extreme.
posted by the primroses were over at 8:41 AM on January 13, 2022
posted by the primroses were over at 8:41 AM on January 13, 2022
So far I've gotten it every day for the last 7 or 8 days, but since I seem to alternate between playing on my phone and on my laptop, I can't seem to break a three day streak. I feel cheated.
posted by Mchelly at 9:02 AM on January 13, 2022
posted by Mchelly at 9:02 AM on January 13, 2022
Wordle 208 6/6
⬛⬛⬛⬛🟨
⬛🟨🟨⬛⬛
⬛🟨⬛🟩⬛
🟩⬛⬛🟩⬛
🟩⬛⬛🟩⬛
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
I fully expected not to finish this one and lucked out at the end.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 9:30 AM on January 13, 2022
⬛⬛⬛⬛🟨
⬛🟨🟨⬛⬛
⬛🟨⬛🟩⬛
🟩⬛⬛🟩⬛
🟩⬛⬛🟩⬛
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
I fully expected not to finish this one and lucked out at the end.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 9:30 AM on January 13, 2022
Wordle 209 6/6
⬛⬛⬛🟨⬛
🟩⬛⬛⬛⬛
⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛
🟩🟩⬛⬛🟩
🟩🟩⬛🟨🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Phew
posted by signal at 4:18 AM on January 14, 2022
⬛⬛⬛🟨⬛
🟩⬛⬛⬛⬛
⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛
🟩🟩⬛⬛🟩
🟩🟩⬛🟨🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Phew
posted by signal at 4:18 AM on January 14, 2022
Wordle 209 6/6
🟨⬜⬜⬜⬜
⬜🟩🟨⬜⬜
🟩🟩⬜⬜⬜
🟩🟩⬜⬜🟩
🟩🟩⬜⬜🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Yup, phew.
posted by box at 4:34 AM on January 14, 2022
🟨⬜⬜⬜⬜
⬜🟩🟨⬜⬜
🟩🟩⬜⬜⬜
🟩🟩⬜⬜🟩
🟩🟩⬜⬜🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Yup, phew.
posted by box at 4:34 AM on January 14, 2022
Wordle 209 3/6
⬛🟨🟨🟨⬛
⬛🟩🟩🟨🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
What this doesn't show is the twenty minutes I spent just staring at it, after the first word, failing to come up with any possible options for line two.
posted by meese at 6:01 AM on January 14, 2022 [3 favorites]
⬛🟨🟨🟨⬛
⬛🟩🟩🟨🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
What this doesn't show is the twenty minutes I spent just staring at it, after the first word, failing to come up with any possible options for line two.
posted by meese at 6:01 AM on January 14, 2022 [3 favorites]
I still haven't figured out if the best strategy after the first word is to try to keep solving using the letter(s) it said I have right, or to go rogue with a completely new set of letters to try and brute force the rest of them out (almost guaranteeing it will take me more tries, but making it more likely to solve).
posted by Mchelly at 7:05 AM on January 14, 2022
posted by Mchelly at 7:05 AM on January 14, 2022
I have stuck with trying to use the letters it’s says I’ve got right, but I’m wondering if your brute force method would work better, Mchelly.
I’ve really gotten stuck on a couple before I remembered 1) it uses American spelling and 2) you can repeat letters.
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 9:15 AM on January 14, 2022
I’ve really gotten stuck on a couple before I remembered 1) it uses American spelling and 2) you can repeat letters.
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 9:15 AM on January 14, 2022
I think the safer strategy is to ignore the hints and try to figure out/eliminate as many letters as possible in the first couple of attempts and then solve using the much smaller set of available letters for the remaining ones. I try not to do that if I can though.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 11:22 AM on January 14, 2022
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 11:22 AM on January 14, 2022
It really depends on what information you have after the first guess(es). I might repeat letters (mostly vowels) if I want to try out different possibilities about what the right location is -- or to make sure they don't repeat! -- and I might try words I know are wrong to look for new letters. I don't usually repeat letters in the same position unless that would be useful for some other word I want to try.
You do want to use what you know about English spelling. For example if there's some shape like
* Except, depending on what the vowel is, it might also appear more than once in the word, which would change your calculations...
I just did one where after guess #4 I had
c, f, h, k, m, p, t, and w is a lot of potential letters to rule out in a single guess. But given the possible answers I came up with, I figured that if there was a c, then there was definitely going to be an f, and vice versa. If there was a w, then there was definitely going to be an m. I also thought that if there was an m there was definitely going to be a w (again, I was forgetting 'smart'). So I figured that out of those two pairs, c/f and w/m, I could just choose one letter to try, because if it was right then I knew what the other missing letter would be, and if it was wrong then I knew that either it had to be the other pair, or it had to be one of the remaining words (sharp/k or stark/t). The word I ended up trying was 'kempt', even though I knew that it wasn't right, because it let me narrow down the options as much as possible. (Even the fact that I forgot about 'smart' didn't really matter, because in that case 'm' and 't' would both be marked as correct. If only 'm' came up as a correct guess, then the word would have to be 'swarm'.) If 'p' was right but 'k', 'm', and 't' weren't, then the word would be 'sharp'. And so on. In the end 'k' and 't' were right and the rest weren't, so 'stark' was the answer.
Most of the time it's not that involved, and I have no idea what approaches are best statistically speaking, but trying to choose words that narrow down possibilities as much as possible is kind of fun. (I've noticed that the list of possible guess words, unlike the list of possible answers, does seem to incorporate lots of weird, uncommon words, which helps. (Thanks to Klipspringer you can actually look at both lists, although that might spoil the fun a bit.))
It's definitely an approach that tends to use up guesses, though.
posted by trig at 12:07 PM on January 14, 2022
You do want to use what you know about English spelling. For example if there's some shape like
1 2 [vowel] 4 5and you've already ruled out any other vowels, then you know* for example that 'r' is impossible (or extremely unlikely?) in positions 1 or 5. And if something like 't' (or c, k, m, p, ...) is at 2, then you pretty much know that the first letter has to be 's' (maybe there's some five-letter word starting with something weird like pt[vowel], but I actually can't think of an answer I've seen so far that hasn't been a relatively common word). And so on. So you can try to craft guesses that give you as much information as possible.
* Except, depending on what the vowel is, it might also appear more than once in the word, which would change your calculations...
I just did one where after guess #4 I had
s _ a r _and the remaining uneliminated letters (that made any sense) were c, f, h, k, m, p, t, and w (scarf, sharp/k, stark/t, swarm). There was at least one possibility I was missing ('smart', because irony is fun) and possibly more (scarp? Is that in the dictionary?), but that was what I thought of as I was doing it. I'd been kind of sloppy before that point and should have ruled out one or more of those, but what can you do.
c, f, h, k, m, p, t, and w is a lot of potential letters to rule out in a single guess. But given the possible answers I came up with, I figured that if there was a c, then there was definitely going to be an f, and vice versa. If there was a w, then there was definitely going to be an m. I also thought that if there was an m there was definitely going to be a w (again, I was forgetting 'smart'). So I figured that out of those two pairs, c/f and w/m, I could just choose one letter to try, because if it was right then I knew what the other missing letter would be, and if it was wrong then I knew that either it had to be the other pair, or it had to be one of the remaining words (sharp/k or stark/t). The word I ended up trying was 'kempt', even though I knew that it wasn't right, because it let me narrow down the options as much as possible. (Even the fact that I forgot about 'smart' didn't really matter, because in that case 'm' and 't' would both be marked as correct. If only 'm' came up as a correct guess, then the word would have to be 'swarm'.) If 'p' was right but 'k', 'm', and 't' weren't, then the word would be 'sharp'. And so on. In the end 'k' and 't' were right and the rest weren't, so 'stark' was the answer.
Most of the time it's not that involved, and I have no idea what approaches are best statistically speaking, but trying to choose words that narrow down possibilities as much as possible is kind of fun. (I've noticed that the list of possible guess words, unlike the list of possible answers, does seem to incorporate lots of weird, uncommon words, which helps. (Thanks to Klipspringer you can actually look at both lists, although that might spoil the fun a bit.))
It's definitely an approach that tends to use up guesses, though.
posted by trig at 12:07 PM on January 14, 2022
Wordle 210 5/6
🟨⬜🟨⬜⬜
🟨🟩⬜⬜⬜
⬜🟩🟨⬜⬜
🟨🟩🟨⬜🟨
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
That one was odd.
posted by box at 5:04 AM on January 15, 2022
🟨⬜🟨⬜⬜
🟨🟩⬜⬜⬜
⬜🟩🟨⬜⬜
🟨🟩🟨⬜🟨
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
That one was odd.
posted by box at 5:04 AM on January 15, 2022
Wordle 211 4/6
🟨⬜🟨🟨⬜
🟨🟨🟨⬜⬜
⬜⬜🟨🟩🟨
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Strong start pays off.
posted by box at 5:18 AM on January 16, 2022
🟨⬜🟨🟨⬜
🟨🟨🟨⬜⬜
⬜⬜🟨🟩🟨
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Strong start pays off.
posted by box at 5:18 AM on January 16, 2022
Wordle 212 3/6
⬜⬜⬜🟩🟩
⬜🟩⬜⬜⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
This one made me smile
posted by Mchelly at 10:56 AM on January 17, 2022
⬜⬜⬜🟩🟩
⬜🟩⬜⬜⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
This one made me smile
posted by Mchelly at 10:56 AM on January 17, 2022
Wordle 213 X/6
⬜⬜⬜🟨⬜
⬜🟩⬜⬜🟨
🟩🟩🟩⬜⬜
🟩🟩🟩⬜⬜
🟩🟩🟩⬜⬜
🟩🟩🟩⬜⬜
There goes my 19 day streak.
posted by tonycpsu at 9:09 PM on January 17, 2022
⬜⬜⬜🟨⬜
⬜🟩⬜⬜🟨
🟩🟩🟩⬜⬜
🟩🟩🟩⬜⬜
🟩🟩🟩⬜⬜
🟩🟩🟩⬜⬜
There goes my 19 day streak.
posted by tonycpsu at 9:09 PM on January 17, 2022
Interesting. I lucked into your step 3 on my step 2, and then the answer was nearly the only word I could think of (though now I can think of another that would have been more obvious to try). So either my early white squares happened to help avoid a slew of possibilities you got mired in, or my brain's freezing up and I'm just not thinking of a whole array of options.
Wordle 213 3/6
⬜⬜🟩⬜⬜
🟩🟩🟩⬜⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
posted by nobody at 10:00 PM on January 17, 2022
Wordle 213 3/6
⬜⬜🟩⬜⬜
🟩🟩🟩⬜⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
posted by nobody at 10:00 PM on January 17, 2022
By the skin of my teeth.
wordle-cli 213 6/6
⬛🟩⬛⬛⬛
⬛🟨⬛⬛⬛
⬛🟩🟩⬛⬛
⬛🟩🟩⬛⬛
🟩🟩🟩⬛⬛
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
posted by Klipspringer at 12:07 AM on January 18, 2022
wordle-cli 213 6/6
⬛🟩⬛⬛⬛
⬛🟨⬛⬛⬛
⬛🟩🟩⬛⬛
⬛🟩🟩⬛⬛
🟩🟩🟩⬛⬛
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
posted by Klipspringer at 12:07 AM on January 18, 2022
Wordle 214 2/6
🟨🟨🟩🟩⬛
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
My starting word came good!
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 7:12 AM on January 19, 2022
🟨🟨🟩🟩⬛
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
My starting word came good!
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 7:12 AM on January 19, 2022
Today's squares formed a yellow bunny rabbit on a bed of lettuce:
Wordle 214 4/6
⬜⬜🟨⬜⬜
⬜⬜⬜🟨🟨
🟩🟨🟨🟨🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
posted by nobody at 5:59 PM on January 19, 2022
Wordle 214 4/6
⬜⬜🟨⬜⬜
⬜⬜⬜🟨🟨
🟩🟨🟨🟨🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
posted by nobody at 5:59 PM on January 19, 2022
My starting word came good!
Yeah, well, that's just, like, your OPINEon, man.
posted by Klipspringer at 4:55 AM on January 20, 2022 [2 favorites]
Yeah, well, that's just, like, your OPINEon, man.
posted by Klipspringer at 4:55 AM on January 20, 2022 [2 favorites]
The dev who made townscaper made a plug in for you to generate your wordle scores into a city building
posted by rebent at 5:06 AM on January 20, 2022
posted by rebent at 5:06 AM on January 20, 2022
Wordle 216 3/6
⬛🟨🟩⬛⬛
🟩⬛🟩⬛⬛
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
I've played 26 times and my solving distribution is 0 1 11 7 6 1. I would have thought there's be more 4s than 3s but my guesses have been planning out it seems.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 6:07 AM on January 21, 2022
⬛🟨🟩⬛⬛
🟩⬛🟩⬛⬛
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
I've played 26 times and my solving distribution is 0 1 11 7 6 1. I would have thought there's be more 4s than 3s but my guesses have been planning out it seems.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 6:07 AM on January 21, 2022
Wordle 216 4/6
⬜⬜🟨⬜⬜
🟨⬜⬜⬜⬜
⬜🟩🟩🟩🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
...well, that one involved some luck.
posted by mosst at 7:30 AM on January 21, 2022
⬜⬜🟨⬜⬜
🟨⬜⬜⬜⬜
⬜🟩🟩🟩🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
...well, that one involved some luck.
posted by mosst at 7:30 AM on January 21, 2022
Wordle 216 4/6
⬛⬛🟨⬛🟨
⬛⬛🟩⬛⬛
🟩🟩🟩⬛⬛
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
So easy to spoil..
posted by signal at 4:13 PM on January 21, 2022
⬛⬛🟨⬛🟨
⬛⬛🟩⬛⬛
🟩🟩🟩⬛⬛
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
So easy to spoil..
posted by signal at 4:13 PM on January 21, 2022
Wordle 217 5/6
⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
⬜🟨🟩⬜⬜
⬜⬜🟩🟨🟨
⬜🟩🟩🟩🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Feel like I made that harder than it had to be.
posted by box at 6:42 AM on January 22, 2022
⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
⬜🟨🟩⬜⬜
⬜⬜🟩🟨🟨
⬜🟩🟩🟩🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Feel like I made that harder than it had to be.
posted by box at 6:42 AM on January 22, 2022
Wordle 217 6/6
⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
⬜🟩⬜🟨⬜
⬜⬜⬜🟨⬜
🟩🟩🟩⬜🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
phew is right
posted by signal at 12:15 PM on January 22, 2022
⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
⬜🟩⬜🟨⬜
⬜⬜⬜🟨⬜
🟩🟩🟩⬜🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
phew is right
posted by signal at 12:15 PM on January 22, 2022
Wordle 218 4/6
🟨⬜⬜⬜🟨
🟨⬜⬜🟨⬜
⬜⬜🟨⬜🟨
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Fumbled around a bit, then a sudden insight.
posted by box at 6:15 AM on January 23, 2022
🟨⬜⬜⬜🟨
🟨⬜⬜🟨⬜
⬜⬜🟨⬜🟨
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Fumbled around a bit, then a sudden insight.
posted by box at 6:15 AM on January 23, 2022
Wordle 218 4/6
⬜🟨🟩🟨⬜
🟨⬜⬜⬜⬜
🟨🟩🟩🟩⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Today's day 31 of my 31 day streak. Thanks for hanging out in this thread, y'all--I've enjoyed seeing the results and commentary so much!
posted by mixedmetaphors at 7:51 AM on January 23, 2022 [5 favorites]
⬜🟨🟩🟨⬜
🟨⬜⬜⬜⬜
🟨🟩🟩🟩⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Today's day 31 of my 31 day streak. Thanks for hanging out in this thread, y'all--I've enjoyed seeing the results and commentary so much!
posted by mixedmetaphors at 7:51 AM on January 23, 2022 [5 favorites]
I'm going to miss this, every morning in my Recent Activity. Thanks for the month of wordling.
posted by meese at 8:39 AM on January 23, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by meese at 8:39 AM on January 23, 2022 [2 favorites]
In before the thread closes, this one felt particularly tricky:
Wordle 219 4/6
⬜🟨⬜⬜⬜
⬜⬜🟨🟨⬜
⬜🟨🟩⬜🟨
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
posted by nobody at 9:12 PM on January 23, 2022
Wordle 219 4/6
⬜🟨⬜⬜⬜
⬜⬜🟨🟨⬜
⬜🟨🟩⬜🟨
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
posted by nobody at 9:12 PM on January 23, 2022
Still enjoying this! The one-a-day limit is smart.
If you want to up the challenge, here are some honor-system rules for an Extra Hard mode:
- Green letters must be re-used in the same spot
- Yellow letters must be re-used in different spots each guess until they become green
- Grey letters cannot be used again
- You must use a different starting guess every game
posted by Rhaomi at 10:27 PM on January 23, 2022 [1 favorite]
If you want to up the challenge, here are some honor-system rules for an Extra Hard mode:
- Green letters must be re-used in the same spot
- Yellow letters must be re-used in different spots each guess until they become green
- Grey letters cannot be used again
- You must use a different starting guess every game
posted by Rhaomi at 10:27 PM on January 23, 2022 [1 favorite]
The “different starting guess each game” is great. I admire the people who have drilled down to find the technical best first guess or two, but that would totally ruin the game for me personally. The yellow and grey rules in this extra hard mode are extra hard for me to conform to, but it is fun to try sometimes.
posted by Night_owl at 10:39 PM on January 23, 2022
posted by Night_owl at 10:39 PM on January 23, 2022
Very satisfying when, despite no greens and three yellows, there's only one word it can be.
Wordle 219 4/6
⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
⬜🟨⬜🟨⬜
⬜🟨⬜⬜⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
posted by Klipspringer at 12:56 AM on January 24, 2022 [2 favorites]
Wordle 219 4/6
⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
⬜🟨⬜🟨⬜
⬜🟨⬜⬜⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
posted by Klipspringer at 12:56 AM on January 24, 2022 [2 favorites]
Wordle 219 4/6
⬛⬛⬛🟩⬛
⬛🟨⬛🟩⬛
⬛⬛🟩🟩⬛
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
I mostly play by Rhaomi rules, but sometimes reuse a gray letter in extremis. Thanks for a fun thread!
posted by the primroses were over at 3:46 AM on January 24, 2022 [1 favorite]
⬛⬛⬛🟩⬛
⬛🟨⬛🟩⬛
⬛⬛🟩🟩⬛
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
I mostly play by Rhaomi rules, but sometimes reuse a gray letter in extremis. Thanks for a fun thread!
posted by the primroses were over at 3:46 AM on January 24, 2022 [1 favorite]
Wordle 219 6/6
⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
⬜🟨⬜⬜⬜
🟨⬜🟨🟨⬜
⬜🟨🟩⬜🟨
🟩🟩🟩⬜⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Phew.
posted by box at 4:36 AM on January 24, 2022
⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
⬜🟨⬜⬜⬜
🟨⬜🟨🟨⬜
⬜🟨🟩⬜🟨
🟩🟩🟩⬜⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Phew.
posted by box at 4:36 AM on January 24, 2022
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posted by babelfish at 10:08 AM on December 24, 2021 [11 favorites]