Absurdle: Adversarial Wordle
January 17, 2022 10:25 PM Subscribe
There's also Evil Wordle, which I believe does the same thing. Looks like the creator was aware of this one, too.
posted by sagc at 10:41 PM on January 17, 2022
posted by sagc at 10:41 PM on January 17, 2022
Took a couple tries but I got one in five.
posted by aubilenon at 11:53 PM on January 17, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by aubilenon at 11:53 PM on January 17, 2022 [2 favorites]
Wordle already hates me.
posted by Coaticass at 12:05 AM on January 18, 2022 [6 favorites]
posted by Coaticass at 12:05 AM on January 18, 2022 [6 favorites]
I like Absurdle! But try as I might I have never managed to need less than six tries.
posted by bigendian at 12:14 AM on January 18, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by bigendian at 12:14 AM on January 18, 2022 [1 favorite]
I got 'crook' in five guesses, but have spent a truly absurd amount of time with word games during the last two years.
posted by kaibutsu at 12:26 AM on January 18, 2022
posted by kaibutsu at 12:26 AM on January 18, 2022
It is deterministic. Just like regular Wordle, it’s useful to try totally different letters even once you have some knowledge, so you can knock them out of contention.
Reading the “how it works” page brings this nice mastermind variant .
posted by nat at 12:31 AM on January 18, 2022
Reading the “how it works” page brings this nice mastermind variant .
posted by nat at 12:31 AM on January 18, 2022
It's fun to lead with weird letters to force it into picking common letters... For example, leading with 'pylon' instead of something sensible like 'aisle.' The first word is basically saying 'here's five letters you can't use...'
posted by kaibutsu at 12:54 AM on January 18, 2022 [5 favorites]
posted by kaibutsu at 12:54 AM on January 18, 2022 [5 favorites]
Ooooh, and that suggests a fun game: Adversarial Wordle Golf. I tell you a word, and you have to force Adversarial Wordle to accept the word in as few moves as possible. Let's start with 'pylon'...
posted by kaibutsu at 1:01 AM on January 18, 2022 [5 favorites]
posted by kaibutsu at 1:01 AM on January 18, 2022 [5 favorites]
I wrote a program to solve it in 4 (recommended if you like doing that kind of thing! very satisfying!), but Kaibutsu's game is much more interesting! I'm going to start thinking about how to do that now.
posted by wattle at 1:18 AM on January 18, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by wattle at 1:18 AM on January 18, 2022 [1 favorite]
I think the only downside to this is that if you replay the same sequence each time, you get the same outcome. So where I might try a few words to cover a lot of the alphabet in Wordle, i.e. PEARS, TOUGH, MILKY ... and get different answers each time, here I get the same outcome every time because I've narrowed it down in exactly the same way.
posted by pulposus at 1:45 AM on January 18, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by pulposus at 1:45 AM on January 18, 2022 [2 favorites]
It's fun to lead with weird letters to force it into picking common letters...
Waltz, quick foxed nymph!
posted by a car full of lions at 1:56 AM on January 18, 2022 [4 favorites]
Waltz, quick foxed nymph!
posted by a car full of lions at 1:56 AM on January 18, 2022 [4 favorites]
Tempting to make a clone that's in some way incomplete, just to be able to call it Gödel.
posted by Klipspringer at 3:26 AM on January 18, 2022 [11 favorites]
posted by Klipspringer at 3:26 AM on January 18, 2022 [11 favorites]
Anyone know whether the letter distribution is the same as for English? How about the letter pair distribution? I have a notion that the word list selects for unusual letter pairs.
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 3:38 AM on January 18, 2022
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 3:38 AM on January 18, 2022
Absurdle 8/∞
⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
⬜⬜⬜⬜🟨
⬜⬜🟨⬜🟩
🟩🟩⬜⬜🟩
🟩🟩⬜⬜🟩
⬜🟩⬜⬜🟩
⬜🟩🟩🟩🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Wait, qntm, where have I seen that name before...?
Oh! It's The author of There Is No Antimemetics Division and Lena!
Cannot recommend highly enough. (Don't worry if you aren't into SCP; TINAD transcends the genre.)
posted by The genius who rejected Anno's budget proposal. at 3:45 AM on January 18, 2022 [3 favorites]
⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
⬜⬜⬜⬜🟨
⬜⬜🟨⬜🟩
🟩🟩⬜⬜🟩
🟩🟩⬜⬜🟩
⬜🟩⬜⬜🟩
⬜🟩🟩🟩🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Wait, qntm, where have I seen that name before...?
Oh! It's The author of There Is No Antimemetics Division and Lena!
Cannot recommend highly enough. (Don't worry if you aren't into SCP; TINAD transcends the genre.)
posted by The genius who rejected Anno's budget proposal. at 3:45 AM on January 18, 2022 [3 favorites]
I heartily recommend Letterle. Probably the most engrossing word game I've played.
posted by pipeski at 4:05 AM on January 18, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by pipeski at 4:05 AM on January 18, 2022 [1 favorite]
Tempting to make a clone that's in some way incomplete, just to be able to call it Gödel.
The goal of Gödel is to guess which word hasn't been guessed for today's Gödel.
posted by yankeefog at 4:53 AM on January 18, 2022 [4 favorites]
The goal of Gödel is to guess which word hasn't been guessed for today's Gödel.
posted by yankeefog at 4:53 AM on January 18, 2022 [4 favorites]
Force it to pick uncommon letters with at least one vowel and you finish in 5
CINES
ABORT
PUDGY
is my standard wordle play at the beginning to burn thru the low probability letters.
this also works for absurdle....
my other high probability start for lolz
ADIEU
STORY
doesn't work as well as you give it lots more room to torment you
posted by lalochezia at 5:09 AM on January 18, 2022 [3 favorites]
CINES
ABORT
PUDGY
is my standard wordle play at the beginning to burn thru the low probability letters.
this also works for absurdle....
my other high probability start for lolz
ADIEU
STORY
doesn't work as well as you give it lots more room to torment you
posted by lalochezia at 5:09 AM on January 18, 2022 [3 favorites]
Anyone know whether the letter distribution is the same as for English? How about the letter pair distribution? I have a notion that the word list selects for unusual letter pairs.
Absurdle is picking from the same solutions list as official Wordle. This was constructed by the creator of Wordle asking his partner to narrow down the valid-guess list (12,972) to the ones she recognised (2,315). Fortunately, she enjoys word games.
Here's a table of (single) letter frequencies in guesses and solutions. I assume the guess list is a reasonable selection of 5-letter American English words. The big change is that S is way less frequent in solutions — she removed plurals.
posted by Klipspringer at 5:52 AM on January 18, 2022 [2 favorites]
Absurdle is picking from the same solutions list as official Wordle. This was constructed by the creator of Wordle asking his partner to narrow down the valid-guess list (12,972) to the ones she recognised (2,315). Fortunately, she enjoys word games.
Here's a table of (single) letter frequencies in guesses and solutions. I assume the guess list is a reasonable selection of 5-letter American English words. The big change is that S is way less frequent in solutions — she removed plurals.
posted by Klipspringer at 5:52 AM on January 18, 2022 [2 favorites]
Is it possible to choose any word to force a win with?
posted by rhamphorhynchus at 5:53 AM on January 18, 2022
posted by rhamphorhynchus at 5:53 AM on January 18, 2022
It's like in Battleship, moving your ships around in response to your opponents firing search pattern. I like it!
posted by turkeybrain at 6:10 AM on January 18, 2022
posted by turkeybrain at 6:10 AM on January 18, 2022
qntm also created Hatetris, "a game of Tetris which always gives you the worst possible pieces". From 2010, fairly early for a Javascript browser game. And base2048, a ridiculous Unicode encoding for binary data perfectly suited for getting the most bits possible into a tweet and has a pleasing output: "ටժݹਐටดݹமsරݪƐජଈݲ௨ණໃφذගדݶಒට".
And as noted above, qntm wrote There Is No Antimemetics Division, an SCP Foundation related book. If you like paranormal scifi I highly recommend just reading it cold without any hints as to what it's about. There's a bunch of clever conceits in the story construction that you have to experience for yourself.
posted by Nelson at 6:34 AM on January 18, 2022 [3 favorites]
And as noted above, qntm wrote There Is No Antimemetics Division, an SCP Foundation related book. If you like paranormal scifi I highly recommend just reading it cold without any hints as to what it's about. There's a bunch of clever conceits in the story construction that you have to experience for yourself.
posted by Nelson at 6:34 AM on January 18, 2022 [3 favorites]
It is nice to see that Wordl's social media sweet spot niche of combination humblebragging and vaguebooking is now being thoroughly colonized even ironically. Mostly because that means it will soon be over.
posted by srboisvert at 6:49 AM on January 18, 2022
posted by srboisvert at 6:49 AM on January 18, 2022
Yeah, because people posting fun, inconsequential things on social media is terrible and must be stopped!
posted by jacquilynne at 6:58 AM on January 18, 2022 [6 favorites]
posted by jacquilynne at 6:58 AM on January 18, 2022 [6 favorites]
So this is Wordle but it would take longer? That sounds fabulous - my only problem with Wordle is that it is so quick.
posted by Frowner at 6:59 AM on January 18, 2022
posted by Frowner at 6:59 AM on January 18, 2022
It's fun to lead with weird letters to force it into picking common letters.
It is! Though twice in the dozen or so games I played I ended up with JAZZY by eliminating nearly all the vowels and the more common letters early on.
This game is fun. I had the sense that I was not so much solving it as being herded to an answer.
posted by Well I never at 7:05 AM on January 18, 2022 [1 favorite]
It is! Though twice in the dozen or so games I played I ended up with JAZZY by eliminating nearly all the vowels and the more common letters early on.
This game is fun. I had the sense that I was not so much solving it as being herded to an answer.
posted by Well I never at 7:05 AM on January 18, 2022 [1 favorite]
The way I use it to get a unique game every day is to solve the day's Wordle first, then use the Wordle solution as your start word for Absurdle, so you can report your combi score for the day, if you want.
posted by ambrosen at 7:14 AM on January 18, 2022 [8 favorites]
posted by ambrosen at 7:14 AM on January 18, 2022 [8 favorites]
So this is Wordle but it would take longer? That sounds fabulous - my only problem with Wordle is that it is so quick.
If you want Wordle but more, you might want to try WordGuessr, which allows you to keep playing as many times as you'd like in a row and lets you set the number of letters in the word up to 7.
posted by a snickering nuthatch at 9:55 AM on January 18, 2022 [2 favorites]
If you want Wordle but more, you might want to try WordGuessr, which allows you to keep playing as many times as you'd like in a row and lets you set the number of letters in the word up to 7.
posted by a snickering nuthatch at 9:55 AM on January 18, 2022 [2 favorites]
WordGuessr with three-letter words is fiendish (I say this delightedly, as a compliment), as there isn't enough space to actually rule out enough consonants!
I do not play for minimum score, but prefer creating penpangrammatic sets of five isogrammatic valid guesses in regular wordle, getting all of my answers using the full six selections but without having to guess at the sixth at all. (which would also succeed at a much meaner version of the game with more obscure words as possible answers!) "Vetch dwarf zings jumpy bloke" uses everything but Q and X, only repeats E, and its first 24 letters are all distinct.
Favorite valid guesses of the moment: PZAZZ, QAJAQ, PHPHT, VUGHY, YRIVD, WAQFS, ZHOMO, VOZHD.
posted by Earthtopus at 12:07 PM on January 18, 2022 [1 favorite]
I do not play for minimum score, but prefer creating penpangrammatic sets of five isogrammatic valid guesses in regular wordle, getting all of my answers using the full six selections but without having to guess at the sixth at all. (which would also succeed at a much meaner version of the game with more obscure words as possible answers!) "Vetch dwarf zings jumpy bloke" uses everything but Q and X, only repeats E, and its first 24 letters are all distinct.
Favorite valid guesses of the moment: PZAZZ, QAJAQ, PHPHT, VUGHY, YRIVD, WAQFS, ZHOMO, VOZHD.
posted by Earthtopus at 12:07 PM on January 18, 2022 [1 favorite]
For some reason, it always takes me 7 guesses. The first 2-3 just eliminate letters, then I narrow in. Maybe 7 is just my number....
posted by GenjiandProust at 12:28 PM on January 18, 2022
posted by GenjiandProust at 12:28 PM on January 18, 2022
I also started with ADIEU and wound up forcing JAZZY ... twice before I came in here to read the comments.
posted by BrotherCaine at 12:58 PM on January 18, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by BrotherCaine at 12:58 PM on January 18, 2022 [1 favorite]
I have wrapped my head around double letters but triple threw me for a loop. Damn you MAMMA!
posted by jacquilynne at 1:02 PM on January 18, 2022
posted by jacquilynne at 1:02 PM on January 18, 2022
Sweardle is also like wordle but you can wank all over it.
posted by biffa at 1:08 PM on January 18, 2022
posted by biffa at 1:08 PM on January 18, 2022
Not good with words? Try the much easier and slightly sillier primle Where you have to guess a 5 digit prime number (but are allowed to enter non prime numbers).
posted by mmkhd at 1:12 PM on January 18, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by mmkhd at 1:12 PM on January 18, 2022 [1 favorite]
The first word is basically saying 'here's five letters you can't use...'
For the most part, though usually if you guess a word with a lot of vowels, you'll be given one yellow letter instead. ADIEU and MIAOU are good for this.
posted by Johnny Assay at 1:27 PM on January 18, 2022
For the most part, though usually if you guess a word with a lot of vowels, you'll be given one yellow letter instead. ADIEU and MIAOU are good for this.
posted by Johnny Assay at 1:27 PM on January 18, 2022
I haven’t proved it yet but I strongly suspect that a substantial fraction of words in the “solution words” set” can’t be reached by any sequence of guesses.
posted by sjswitzer at 2:03 PM on January 18, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by sjswitzer at 2:03 PM on January 18, 2022 [1 favorite]
>I haven’t proved it yet but I strongly suspect that a substantial fraction of words in the “solution words” set” can’t be reached by any sequence of guesses.
A comment from the qntm absurdle thread claims otherwise: (I leave the hyperlink un-HTML'd in order to conceal the spoilers within)
"2022-01-15 20:34:43 by hmmatea:
you can force any word to be the answer.
here is a list of ways to do that for any word you want:
https://github.com/mhavos/mhavos/blob/15b5a90e425ece06ab5585db1c05fa5392d96b13/solved.txt
(not optimized)
"
posted by Earthtopus at 2:18 PM on January 18, 2022 [1 favorite]
Oh, cool. And yes, don’t look if you don’t want spoilers. It contains something surprising that’s also in the Wordle source code which you should definitely not look at.
posted by sjswitzer at 2:26 PM on January 18, 2022
posted by sjswitzer at 2:26 PM on January 18, 2022
I’m using the “random guess” button to start a different path each time, then playing normally after that. I seem to hit 6 tries (including the random guess) every time.
posted by etc. at 4:04 PM on January 18, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by etc. at 4:04 PM on January 18, 2022 [1 favorite]
Despite my praise of the 3-length word WordGuessr above, a larger guess cap on words of length 3 would be useful; it's incredibly easy to fail with only 18 characters worth of guesses and not a lot of fun if you get _AY but have half the alphabet'sworth of consonants left to attempt. Very feast-or-famine, but very quick to play at work, at least.
4 and 6 have promise. 7 may have the mirror problem of 3, with too much guessing-space in terms of raw character length.
posted by Earthtopus at 6:22 PM on January 18, 2022
4 and 6 have promise. 7 may have the mirror problem of 3, with too much guessing-space in terms of raw character length.
posted by Earthtopus at 6:22 PM on January 18, 2022
That was tough!
Playing BEAST > PRONG > MILKY led to
Absurdle 9/∞
⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
⬜🟨🟨⬜⬜
⬜⬜🟩🟨⬜
⬜🟩🟩🟨⬜
🟩🟩🟩⬜⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
posted by emelenjr at 10:31 AM on January 19, 2022
Playing BEAST > PRONG > MILKY led to
Absurdle 9/∞
⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
⬜🟨🟨⬜⬜
⬜⬜🟩🟨⬜
⬜🟩🟩🟨⬜
🟩🟩🟩⬜⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
posted by emelenjr at 10:31 AM on January 19, 2022
Okay that strongly suggests a metagame where players are trying to find a word sequence to create a grid that appears to capture a moment in a Tetris game, where the yellow squares form a tetromino supported by green squares...
posted by a snickering nuthatch at 1:40 PM on January 19, 2022
posted by a snickering nuthatch at 1:40 PM on January 19, 2022
I am sure I'm not getting the point of this game, but using it to play a more time-consuming, repeatable wordle is nice.
posted by Frowner at 3:54 PM on January 19, 2022
posted by Frowner at 3:54 PM on January 19, 2022
> It's fun to lead with weird letters to force it into picking common letters... For example, leading with 'pylon' instead of something sensible like 'aisle.' The first word is basically saying 'here's five letters you can't use...'
Try starting with 'crest'.
Then you're stuck trying to come up with words that don't have a c,r,e,s, or t in them. "What about ... no. Maybe ... no. And ... dammit!"
posted by sebastienbailard at 10:27 PM on January 19, 2022 [1 favorite]
Try starting with 'crest'.
Then you're stuck trying to come up with words that don't have a c,r,e,s, or t in them. "What about ... no. Maybe ... no. And ... dammit!"
posted by sebastienbailard at 10:27 PM on January 19, 2022 [1 favorite]
One trick to make easier progress with Absurdle is to not get hung up on maximizing untried letters every time. If the only candidate words that come to mind recycle a “known bad” letter, give it a try anyway just to narrow the field. It’s suboptimal but who cares? It makes the game a lot less stressful.
posted by notoriety public at 5:24 AM on January 20, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by notoriety public at 5:24 AM on January 20, 2022 [1 favorite]
I've been playing this for a few days now and have never gotten an answer in less than five tries. I'm wondering if anyone has managed it in four. (Other than the person who wrote a program to do it.)
posted by Redstart at 2:39 PM on January 21, 2022
posted by Redstart at 2:39 PM on January 21, 2022
Another tricky one I came across recently is obscurdle.
posted by juv3nal at 4:23 PM on January 24, 2022 [4 favorites]
mild/vague hint
sometimes the contents of prior rows can affect what lights up on the current rowposted by juv3nal at 4:23 PM on January 24, 2022 [4 favorites]
Oh, obscurdle made me feel dumb for not spotting patterns more quickly.
posted by BrotherCaine at 10:47 AM on January 25, 2022
posted by BrotherCaine at 10:47 AM on January 25, 2022
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posted by a car full of lions at 10:39 PM on January 17, 2022 [6 favorites]