Mastodon

Wordle is Kinda Great

Posted by Matt Birchler
— 1 min read
Wordle is Kinda Great

Wordle is a word-based puzzle game that you can play once per day, and everyone plays the same puzzle. You guess 5 letter words, and for each guess the game will tell you how many letters you have correct. It's here and you can check it out now.

This is a play on some very old word game, I'm sure, but that doesn't diminish it. Wordle is great because of how its executed and all the little things it does right that add up to something many can't stop playing.

  1. Everyone plays the same puzzle every day, so it feels communal.
  2. You can only play one puzzle per day, so you can'ty burn out on it.
  3. Since you only play once, you look forward to the new puzzle every day.
  4. The app is minimal, but works great on every device and behaves exactly how you'd hope it would.
  5. The animations when you submit a guess are timed just right to add a little drama to each reveal.
  6. The keyboard coloring keys based on if they're in the solution or not is perfect.
  7. There are no ads.
  8. The share button when you complete a game makes it easy to share an instantly-identifiable message that's quickly become iconic.
  9. There's a bit an "if you know you know" thing with other Wordle players as they can see your masked progress and guess what your strategy was for that game.
  10. The score screen uses localStorage in your browser to track your stats, so you always see how well you've been doing over time.
  11. Because it's using localStorage, there's no need for a sign in, you just go to the page and play.
  12. There's no bullshit, it's a pure game, wonderfully executed.