On the Wordle game achanging...

New York Times is not wasting any time to cash in on the Wordle fad. After announcing the high profile purchase of the game, NYTimes is assuming the hosting of the game in its own site now, as expected.

As reported, NYTimes is also finessing the word choice which is hardly surprising. Afterall it's prudent to screen offensive or inappropriate words (like pussy, or whore) to make the game more family- or kids-friendly.

It's almost certain that the words library will be expanded more substantially. The words in the original games are really a bit too easy (and not that challenging). It's satisfying, no doubt, but it's a good thing that NYTimes wants to keep the game on a more intellectually challenging level, rather than lowing the bar, just to make players feel good. 

I thus can't believe it when I read how so many people are complaining about NYTimes making it too hard, with words like, cynic, or caulk.  I mean, c'mon, who are these whiny babies?  Do these whiners even make it pass middle school? Such sore losers.

In any case, here it is, my first game on the redirected NYTimes site:

Wordle 242 5/6

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As usual, my first two attempts are just the controls (with the same two words I always use, in screening out all the vowels). Real guess starts from third attempt. 

I'm wondering out loud if the puzzle master of NYTimes is going to make it more tiered, ie. different levels to cater for different users. So, Beginners could stay with the five-letter words in six attempts. Intermediate could have maybe six-letter words in five attempts, and Experts could play seven-letter words in four attempts, and so on. The sharing aspect will stay, but it'll notate not just the same game # for all users, but different levels. But, it wouldn't be wise to make the tier'ing too complicated. The beauty of Wordle is to keep it simple.

Afterall, even Sudoku does that. And it's another game that I like.

On a little bit of Wordle dumb luck...

Here's how a little bit of dumb luck looks like:

Wordle 240 4/6

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On my messed up cumulative stats in Wordle...

So, my broadband hasn't been working and I have to decamp elsewhere for the past few days to work.

As it turns out, Wordle must have tagged the stats either using browser session ID or IP, but due to the reboot of my machine, browsers have all restarted. Even after browsers restore my previous tabs, all my Wordle stats got reset, and I'm starting from Day 1 again.  argh :/

Now that New York Times has paid a six-figure price to buy the Wordle game, hopefully NYT will fix this issue once and for all.  The open question now is, would Wordle continue to be a free game for everyone to play?

There was also news that some know-it-all genius thought that they are so clever, advising people that since Wordle is all just javascript that has little protections of the js files, one can click Save to download the javascript of Wordle, and play the game, like, forever.  

When I say "clever," I don't necessarily mean it in a positive way. Consider this:

• The browser-based Wordle isn't the only place one can play the game. There are more than enough clones (with the exact same UI/UX and game rules as Wordle) on Apple Store alone that anyone can download to play for free. So...why bother to infringe on the copyright of the original owner of Wordle by downloading his javascript?
• Presumably too, the javascript contains some 2500 or so five-letter words that Wordle will recycle through. So, yes, you can play it locally forever, but the words will become familiar after, what, six years or so.
• More importantly, the Wordle game is actually quite simple. The reason it's gone viral, is more about its clean UX to Share the game result with friends without giving out the word-of-the-day. When you play locally, this social element is totally lost. Yes, you can beat the local (or pseudo) Wordle with flying colors, but no one will ever know, nor will anyone care.
• Truth be told, I've downloaded and played some of Wordle clones on iphone, and they are actually much harder (with more obscure word choice). My bet is, they source from a much larger word library than just 2500+ words.

Long story short, here's my daily dose:

Wordle 237 3/6

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Pity the cumulative stats are pretty meaningless now.  :/

On my daily Wordle, day 12...

Best result so far -

Wordle 234 3/6

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Accumulated stats -

On my daily Wordle dose...

Daily Wordle brain tease -

Wordle 233 4/6

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Keeping it up -

On more Wordle rules...

I have not realized that the Wordle 5-letter words allow the same letter to be reused in the word. I had thought each five letters must be unique in the 5-letter words, apparently that was not the case.

Without realizing this, I almost got tripped up, though finally got it right -

Wordle 232 5/6

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Keep the winning streak -

On my Wordle stats...

Wordle has gone viral quite recently. I can readily see why. 

Let's see how long my winning streak can last -

For today -

Wordle 231 4/6

🟩⬜⬜⬜🟨

🟨⬜⬜⬜⬜

🟩⬜🟩⬜🟩

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

I've figured out a strategy to use -

• I always use the same words in the first two attempts so as to tease out all five vowels.
• My real attempt of guess really starts at the third attempt.
• So, my aim is to have the correct guess at the fourth attempt.

Here's my board for the past eight days -

A friend of mine once sent me her board in which she guessed the word on first attempt. That's what I call, dumb luck. She's happy of course, and I'm happy for her, though it's not something I would congratulate myself for. No one survives on dumb luck forever (except maybe Forrest Gump), and one doesn't grow on dumb luck. For a word game, I'd much rather than play it on skills that I can grow on. Luck (in life) only takes you so far.