It Worked Because It Was Simple: Why Wordle Needs To Take It Easy On The Vocab

The February 16 Wordle was no child's play. And that is not necessarily a good thing. The internet is ablaze with players grumbling about this not being what they signed up for when they were initiated into the game, which has kept interests hooked since it was first released in October 2021.

I am an English major and an avid reader, and honestly, even that grounding did not prep me for this level of difficulty on Wordle. I hit the answer on the final try, the green tiles on the sixth row revealing a largely obscure word I might have read in a book somewhere. It is neither an interesting word nor one that is heard in everyday speech. Which makes it stand out in the pool of words the game has thrown at us so far.

The USP of Wordle lies unequivocally in its simplicity, accessibility, ad-free interface, everyday word bank and shareability. After a long time, casual gamers were treated to a pastime that promised selfless, leisurely engagement. All thanks to the word games-obsessed girlfriend of a New York-based software engineer.

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Josh Wardle made Wordle for his partner Palak Shah for some pandemic amusement. After the popularity of the game in their family circle, Wardle went public with it, developing it on his own website.

But ever since The New York Times' acquisition of the game in January this year, at the reported price of over a million dollars, users have pointed out that the tough-o-meter on Wordle has been amped up. An infuriatingly unnecessary change, if so.

When Wordle went viral, its attractiveness was attributed to its inclusive quality. As per NYT itself, Shah herself browsed through the list of five-letter solutions of the game, slashing it down from 12000 to 2500, retaining only ordinary words that gamers could easily guess.

People of all ages, with varying aptitudes in the English language, could participate in the fun because the solutions were just that easy. These words were those that were commonly heard and said. Quotidian, as the newly furnished Wordle would say.

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It was refreshing to see teens and oldies on the same page, on Twitter and in WhatsApp groups, animatedly comparing their triple-hued answer sheets for the day. Classics like Crossword or Scrabble often lack such an all-embracing quality.

Wordle united generations and communities, sustained on an oath of shared goodwill that is rare in this spoiler-ridden world, keeping the solutions concealed until people we wanted to discuss them with had made the solve. Even that enjoyment seems to have been impinged upon with certain gaps between NYT's version and that developed by Wardle on powerlanguage.

As per reports, Wordle 241 onwards users have seen both versions of Wordle throwing up different solutions. February 15's Wordle stoked anguish online after some users got 'aroma' while others had to decode the more wearying 'agora.' NYT says it is making alterations to the solutions list to remove words that could be deemed offensive.

To the average player, these technicalities hardly matter. All people enjoy about Wordle and are asking for is a straightforward game that takes minimal brainpower and time. A five-minute release from the pressures of life.

It's no fun if Wordle, with its Tharoorian English, starts behaving cocky.

Views expressed are the author's own. 

Image credit: Goosed