Despite a relatively short lifespan of less than a year, Wordle took the world by the storm with its simplicity and addictive flow, rapidly becoming one of the most beloved word games of modern times. Wordle is quite possibly one of the easiest games to learn to play, but it is so fascinating because in order to master it, players can adopt a multitude of different strategies. As such, no game is the same even when players use similar methods to discover the letters to place in the grid between each game, and that's because the five-letter words system with only six guesses makes Wordle quite competitive and challenging.
It's not uncommon to witness players share their achievements online, guessing the daily word Wordle provides in two or three tries through mind-bending strategies. Because of the game's success, a lot of Wordle clones started sprawling on the internet, and some of them became popular as well due to two major factors: Wordle's limited archive and the fact that players can complete games in a few minutes. These things combined are what called for clones in the first place, as Wordle fans can quickly run out of new words to guess.
Why Wordle's Model Calls For Clones
Wordle was created by Josh Wardle, and it was later bought by The New York Times with the goal of expanding on the website's already well-established vision of becoming a tool that every English-speaking person should use to understand the world around them. With this in mind, it's easy to see how the word game fits perfectly with this concept, as it offers a daily challenge that readers and casual visitors alike can engage with regardless of their proficiency with the English language. Still, Wordle can be quite complex at times, with words even native speakers may not know before their appearance on The New York Times' platform.
Wordle's archive comprises a total of 291 different words as of today, with a single new one to guess coming every day, which means that newcomers can only go through so many words before running out of them, eventually. This may take a while, but the Wordle archive is finite, and once players do get through the entirety of it, the only ways to scratch that itch are to wait for the next daily word or look for clones. Furthermore, because players can hypothetically guess every word within a minute, those who rush through the archive may be left wanting even more.
These things make creating Wordle clones almost a service to the community, and the beauty of it all is that word games with only a couple of rules can explore near-endless possibilities. An example is Lewdle, which is Wordle but for NSFW words of five letters, and it has the same flow of the base game. Another similar game is Queerdle, which works with six-letter words that are all part of the LGBTQ+ vocabulary, leading to some interesting discoveries while playing.
The Wordle model can even go beyond that, with an example in the form of Primel, which has the same overall rules as Wordle but works with numbers instead of letters. The purpose is to find prime numbers of five digits. Not only that, but a Destiny 2Wordle clone called Rolldle came up, which uses weapon traits instead of letters for its mechanic. Ultimately, while the Wordle experience might come to a stall, players can enjoy similar challenges with all the clones out there, which will eventually multiply even further to include even more options.
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