JCC WORDLE (and other NYT games) Discussion

Have you heard about this? Why is it all over social media? Well, that I can't answer. I can tell you it's a word game that is the current obsession for no apparent reason and I'm definitely addicted like everyone else.

How do you play?
First, go to this link: https://www.powerlanguage.co.uk/wordle/

Rules:
You have 6 tries to guess the WORDLE.
Each guess must be a valid 5 letter word. Hit the enter button to submit.
After each guess, the color of the tiles will change to show how close your guess was to the word.

IMO, it's very similar to the game "Lingo" that used to air on the Game Show Network. Obviously Lingo didn't invent the game, but you got the starting letter on the show. With Wordle, you don't get any starting hints.

While it's fun to play and I'm addicted, the downside is there is only 1 word a day so you need to remember to come back the next day. Hopefully they're figure out how one can play past words as you currently cannot. At the time of this post, it appears there has been 212 games as you can share your results without spoiling with the share button.

Have fun playing and don't spoil today's word for anyone! If you need help, or want a tip, please ask in this thread and make sure to use spoiler quotes.

 

The dictionary allows repeated letters and is a bit inconsistent about proper nouns (Shiva was a valid guess for me today). This should annoy me enough to stop playing, but it hasn't, because human brains are garbage.

 

I'm guessing it read your word as shiva -- a period of seven days' formal mourning for the dead, beginning immediately after the funeral, and not the proper noun.

 

Tried it and the 3rd word was already correct.

 

I'm not sure I'm thrilled about it allowing inconsistently anglicized Hebrew loanwords in that case.

Edit: Though probably not as not-thrilled as I saw a bunch of British folks get when the word was "Color."

 

Wordle 212 3/6

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Interesting, it doesn't copy in color! 3 tries

 

Yeah, I like this quite a bit. A simple little headscratcher that's a good way to start the day. The real question is do you have a set opening word or do you try and have something different every day?

 

I usually start with "POINT", but today's word actually gave me an idea for an opener I might like better.

 

I use FARCE or FORCE

 

Yeah it copies with colors, but doesn't post with colors here and I'm not sure why.

I've tried a different opening word each day.

 

I start with either "audio" or "adieu" to get in as many vowels as I can.

 

Well, that was fun. I was able to get it on the fifth try once I understood the rules.

 

Is it devised in such a way that logical play will always succeed ?

 

Probably not. The game is essentially Mastermind but with the added advantage of knowing precisely which positions are fixed/out of order but the disadvantage of having more "colors" and only certain valid "coloring sequences" being permitted (if you think of letters as colors). Limiting you to six moves places you below some of the known thresholds for Mastermind, which suggests perfect play may not be possible. See, e.g., this beginner-friendly breakdown of computational problems regarding Mastermind.

WORDLE seems popular enough there will probably be some CS articles on it. This is the kind of **** some folks love to research.

 

@Ramza but you have the very strong constraint that only existing words are accepted

 

Right, but the dictionary seems to just be an American English dictionary, which could mean there are something like 150k valid strings.

Edit: Ah, but this is interesting, apparently there actually aren't because of the specific subset of words the game uses. Do not click if you hate spoilers. This can limit the scope of possible searches, though some of the calculations in this stack suggest that there may still be "seven guesses required" words with a fixed approach.

Edit 2: This has led me down the rabbit hole to Absurdle, which is now my favorite thing on the Internet because it reminds me of how I used to cheat at Battleship.

 

Drat! Today I would’ve gotten my first 3-out-of-6 but I guessed one letter off…

 

I’m 10-for-10 since I started playing. Only once have I gotten it on the third guess. Most of mine have come on the fourth, but today and yesterday were both guessed on the sixth try.

 

I tried adieu and it said "not in word list". So against my better judgment, I started with audio. I recommend not to, at least today.

Puzzle 213 5/6

 

Today was tricky, although on day one of usage I'm liking "SHINE" as my initial test word. It has a lot of common letters, so if you don't get a hit, you know something is squirrely, which it certainly was.

 

I've been trying to mix it up, but I think I need to go back to my initial starting word of PARTY.

 

I've generally found success with trying first words with two or more vowels in it.

 

Credit to BF2k1, “AUDIO” is a terrific Absurdle guess because it’s such a hard hit across the possible vowels, severely limiting the routine’s escape routes. I managed to get one in six using that as my opener.

Edit: ROUTE is probably also a good one for similar reasons.