We all love Wordle. Personally, it’s an essential part of my day; every morning, I open up the New York Times on my phone and try to guess the five-letter word of the day. Recently, I’ve also been looking into some more Wordle variants and I think they’re just as interesting as the original game, so today, I’ll be ranking several of my favorite Wordle-type games. They may range in topic and similarity, but they all share the same basic premise.
Letterle
Letterle is pretty funny — in 26 guesses, you must guess the mystery letter. That’s it. It might not be the most difficult, but it’s certainly one of the most unique and entertaining. You basically have to type in random letters until you find the right one. But if you’re actually looking for a puzzle to do, this might not be the best for you.
Pros: Funny
Cons: Very easy, not much thinking involved
Globle
Globle is a variant that deviates more from the general formula of the Wordle structure. When you open up the website, you’re greeted with a globe, and the objective is to guess the mystery country in as few guesses as possible. Once you guess a country, the website shades the country in a color ranging from white to red, depending on the guessed country’s proximity to the mystery nation, with white being very far and red being extremely close. I find that Globle is a pretty fun game, and it has real educational value — ever since I started doing this, I think that my geography skills have increased tenfold. Although Globle may be hard at first without the assistance of Google Maps, I think that it’s definitely worth a shot. However, the only thing that holds this variant back is the website — oftentimes, it can be pretty laggy and the globe isn’t the highest definition, so the tinier islands are hard to see.
Pros: Easy to understand, educational
Cons: Website can be laggy, lack of definition on map
Factle
Factle is one that I discovered pretty recently when Mr. Rohl played it while subbing for our AP Stats class. Every day, there is a new random “fact” that you can guess, and this puzzle really tests your trivia knowledge. It’s definitely one of the more guessable puzzles using the background knowledge you already possess. For example, I remember a Factle about the longest rivers in the world and another one about the most common Thanksgiving dishes. However, my major problem with Factle is that it’s not always updated every day, which is pretty disappointing.
Pros: Educational trivia
Cons: Not always updated
Sedecordle
If you’re a Wordle lover, what could be better than 16 Wordles at the same time? Sedecordle is essentially Wordle, but with 16 separate words to guess, and you only get 21 guesses for the entire puzzle. I have to say, Sedecordle is actually much harder than it seems. 21 guesses may seem like a lot at first, but it’s actually not that much. A big portion of this puzzle seems to depend on having good guesses at the beginning that cover the majority of the alphabet. However, one thing that I’m not a big fan of is the interface of this game; it just seems too awkward sometimes for my liking, and it can be hard to keep track of what you’ve already guessed.
Pros: Challenging, Wordle x16
Cons: Hard to navigate the puzzle
Nerdle
For all the math people out there, Nerdle is the perfect Wordle variant. The daily objective of this puzzle is to guess the math equation within six guesses. The guesses can be the numerical digits from 0 to 9, the basic operations (+, -, x, /) and the equals sign (=). The simple and clean interface is also a bonus that many of the other variants lack. Although Nerdle might not be for everyone, it definitely has its niche within the Wordle ecosystem.
Pros: Math, clean design
Cons: Math
Wordle
Of course, nothing can really beat the original Wordle. This is still the one I enjoy the most, even with all the new wacky variants that I’ve discovered. From the smooth appearance and animations of the puzzle, to the difficulty on a daily basis, I think that the original Wordle is the ultimate champion of these daily puzzle games.
Pros: Simple and fun
Cons: None!
Of course, there are still many more Wordle variants out there, and I only covered a few of my favorites. There’s one out there for everyone, so the best thing to do is try them for yourself and see what you like the best. Let me know your favorite Wordle variants!
OOHHHHHHH I love Wordle. I wish there was more than one a day but I would play it ALL day! Great list here 🙂
Great blog Dingjia! I also really love wordle, and whenever I had some time to kill in school, I’d always try to hop on and continue my streak. It’s honestly a shame the classic wordle was blocked on the school wifi a while back, along with the much-beloved Connections and Mini Crossword, so I was left with a scarce supply of quick puzzles to satiate my boredom. After reading your blog, I didn’t know there were so many variants of wordle out there! I only knew of Contexto and Globle, so I’ll definitely try some of the variants you listed. Factle sounds really intriguing as I love testing my knowledge on random trivia, so I’ll definitely be wasting a few minutes on that every time it’s updated. Nerdle sounds really nice as a quick brain teaser, maybe to get my brain warmed up at the beginning of the day or before a test. Before Globle, when I was a kid, I would always procrastinate on google earth and explore the most random places. Inadvertently, I also picked up a lot of geographical information that burned into my mind, so Globle is also pretty enjoyable as a game to test my knowledge. Overall, a really nice list of some enjoyable Wordle variants that I’ll probably spend my time on now.
Hey Dingjia,
It’s always amazing to see what types of new games people can come up with. Wordle is always something that boggles my mind. It’s not just about finding a possible word to guess, it’s about finding the best possible word to guess. I enjoy both doing the wordle and also reading the NYT Bot’s analysis of my play strategy, seeing where I messed up and where I could have guessed a better word. And that’s not to say the other wordle variants aren’t fun either. Globle is something that I have played a few times, and it really stretched my geography brain. I haven’t played Nerdle, but it definitely seems like a math mire that I’d willingly jump into. Sedecordle is an interesting concept in which you have to strategically plan your guesses. And the Factle is a great way to learn things that seem unordinary but are actually interesting. I’m sure there are a bunch of other wordle variants out there. I’ve heard of a Chess-ordle, where you have to guess the opening moves in a game of chess, using your knowledge (in my case none) of the various chess openings and defenses. I’ve played once or twice a Minecraft-ordle, where you guess crafting recipes inside a crafting table for various objects. The possibilities just seem endless.