Wordplay, the word game that won internet users

It is not possible to miss them on social networks. For the past two weeks, mysterious messages created by black, yellow and green squares have been occupying the news media.

Hides the event of the beginning of this year behind these intriguing releases: Wordley. Starting at 80,000 players a day in November, the game has grown to 300,000 in early January and is now approaching 3 million.

However, the plan is not intended to go viral. Wordley Designed in 2021 Computer scientist Josh Ward to entertain his wife, a fan of word games From New York Times. Its dynamics are reminiscent of a sports show Movement, Broadcast in France 2 for about 30 years. Player Wordley There are six attempts to guess the five-letter word. The game indicates which characters are well placed and which are not.

Wordley It has nothing in common with today’s mobile games. This is also its opposite. This is not an application: The game is conducted on a personal site By Josh Ward. It does not display ads, does not include payment options, and does not attempt to grab the player’s attention with scales to fill, diamonds for success and announcements. There is only one word to guess a day, the same word for all players. “If you expect growth I have made all the mistakes. These choices are what make the game so popular.», Surprises the developer at TechCrunch.

Josh Ward shared his game with his British family and American friends. By word of mouth, the website reaches out to a journalist New York TimesWho mentioned it in a newsletter in November. The engine is running. But it is the sharing function in social networks that drives the game. Wordley Completed by the web user, but without the words. He can thus boast about his performance without revealing the solution to the riddle of the day. This intriguing format prompted other Internet users to learn about Wordle and test the game.

French versions

The event came to France, but with a serious disability: Wordley Is in English. “Provide a solution for those who want to play in French”, Louan Bengmah, 21, was released on Monday On his personal website Le Mot. ⁇I have A twitch channel I was talking about web development and I thought it would be a nice little project to live with my communityTwo days helped him. “It would not have been so fast without her, and the atmosphere was good.⁇

Luan valued the spirit of Pengma Wordley Without trying to monetize Word ⁇For ethical reasons. I respect the work of others. Josh Ward had a great idea, his site is simple and sharing results on social media with color emojis is awesome. Everything is really perfect.The developer did not install the tracker to measure the number of visitors, but relied on its Twitter account OrdWordleFR To gauge the popularity of his project, which was released online on Monday. It had 2,100 subscribers on Friday, up from 1,500 on Thursday.

Jonathan Magano, 30, Online game Sutom on January 8. ⁇Inspired by a game show called Wordley Linko, it has become our motto. This concept has evolved over time and the rules have become more complex. I decided to get them back“, He explains. The words to be found are long – 6 to 9 characters – and the first letter is imposed.”But I removed the deadline“, The developer explains.

Color coding is like a TV game. “We say that it does not make sense for well-placed characters to be in red, but that was the case in Motas.He smiles. At the request of the players, Jonathan Magno will soon add sound effects similar to a TV show. “I want to add too Black ball , But I still do not know how.

Opportunistic copies were removed from the Appstore

Soodom Twitch was discovered by personalities and is gaining popularity day by day, with over 30,000 hits on the site as of Wednesday. Again, the game is not monetized. “I tagged this for a few hours for fun, I didn’t create anything», This web developer explains. “I know people will be willing to pay to do the second phase every day. But frustration is part of this game. After all, I am a librarian. Sutom source code is online and people can get it.⁇

Others have no resentment at all. Earlier this week, copies of Wordle spread across the App Store, with $ 30 options for ads or playing as many puzzles as you like each day. Apple eventually removed these opportunistic clones from the AppStore. For his part, Josh Ward was approached by investors. But he wants to be quiet. “I do not want Wordley to become a full time job“, He explains to TechCrunch.”This is just a game for me and my girlfriend.⁇