Anyone tried Wordle?

[Mike Lewis]

There seems to be a bit of a craze at the moment for Wordle. Has anyone here tried it yet? Here is the link.

It's very simple. You just have to guess a five-letter word, in a maximum of six attempts. After each attempt, it tells you which letters in your guess also appear in the target word, and which of those also match their position in the target word.

As far as I know, the game can only be played in a browser - there is no app for it (and no plans to create one, apparently). There is just one puzzle per day, and everyone who plays it that day sees the same puzzle.

Give it a try if you haven't already done so. And let us know what you think.

Mike



__________________________________
Mike Lewis (Edinburgh, Scotland)

Visual FoxPro articles, tips and downloads

 

[Mike Lewis]

Since I started this thread, I've done the puzzle almost every day. So far, I haven't got bored with it. I don't know how long that will last.

Personally, I would never consider using an algorithm or any other (semi-)automatic way of solving the puzzle. The reason I enjoy doing it is the challenge of dredging my memory for words that might fit.

That said, thinking up automated ways to solve it is also a mental challenge, so good luck to those who are attempting it.

Mike

__________________________________
Mike Lewis (Edinburgh, Scotland)

Visual FoxPro articles, tips and downloads

 

[kwbMitel]

@Fekerke, totally manual with minimal strategy

I choose a new starting word every time. I try to include A,E,I,O,R,N,T,C in that word but this is just a guide

I always include revealed letters and always replace blanks with new letters.

My stats are ok but nothing to brag about

1 - 0
2 - 3
3 - 6
4 - 9
5 - 2
6 - 2

Fail - 2

 

[feherke]

Hi

Well, with my English skill I have very limited chance without automation. The Hungarian variants I am able to enjoy more, but thinking to automate those too. Not to regularly use it, but there are 2 pretty different versions and handling both increases the programming challenge :

https://jealousmarkup.xyz/szofejto/

vs.

https://szozat.miklosdanka.com/

Feherke.
feherke.github.io

 

[karluk]

I'm sure that anyone who plays wordle regularly has encountered words which are impossible to guess in hard mode within the allowed six guesses. I had an amusing recent experience in which a clairvoyant first guess actually hindered me finding the solution. I started with "chase", getting "h", "a" and "e" correct and in the right place, while "s" was correct but out of position. That meant the solution had to be "sha_e". My next five guesses were "share", "shape", "shave", "shale" and "shame", which luckily turned out to be correct. I would have been out of luck if the solution had been "shade" or "shake". So I most likely would have been better off making a bad first guess in order to eliminate more letters up front.

 

[Mike Lewis]

Karluk,

Your point is well made. I've been is a similar situation, and like you I was lucky with my guesses.

However, an alternative strategy would have been as follows. You know that the word is SHA_E, and that the possible values for the missing letter are R, P, V, L, M, D and K. So for your second guess, disregard the letters you already have, and try to find a word that contain as many of R, P, V, L, M, D and K as possible. So you might have come up with PRIDE. That would have told you either that the target word contains P or R or D, or that it contains V or L or M or K. You now have three more guesses. If you know it contains P or R or D, you would guess each of those in turn, and you would be certain to solve the puzzle. If it contains the other letters, there would be three chances out of four that you would solve it.

Admittedly, this is not a very good example, partly because the missing letters are all consonants and, apart from the R, don't combine very well. But I hope you see my point.

I'm not saying this is the better strategy. But it is another approach to consider.

Mike

__________________________________
Mike Lewis (Edinburgh, Scotland)

Visual FoxPro articles, tips and downloads

 

[karluk]

That would work, Mike, but it's not allowed in "hard mode". According to wordlegame.org

You can make the game harder by turning on "Hard Mode" in the settings. Then any revealed hints must be used in subsequent guesses.

The above example shows that regular mode and hard mode optimization have different optimizations with different maximum required guesses. I may never get around to programming a solution, but to me "hard mode" seems more intriguing. It's very possible that one's first guess in "hard mode" should avoid words like "chase" in order to avoid the pitfall of having too many words to eliminate, one letter at a time.

 

[Mike Lewis]

This is the first time I've heard of "Hard Mode". Was that in the original game, or was it added later?

The game that I've always played was at

https://www.powerlanguage.co.uk/wordle,

which as far as I know was the original - and until recently the only - version of the game. It's the one that has just been purchased by the New York Times (and that URL now redirects to

https://www.nytimes.com/games/wordle/index.html).

Karluk, the link you posted seems to be to a different version of the game - although very similar to the one I know. Is that some sort of clone, I wonder.

(One of the interesting things about that version is that it supports multiple languages. I'm just off to try playing in French.)

Mike

__________________________________
Mike Lewis (Edinburgh, Scotland)

Visual FoxPro articles, tips and downloads

 

[kwbMitel]

Mike, I used your link and there is a settings option (looks like a gear) you can set any of the following:

Hard Mode
Dark Theme
Color Blind Mode

Side note: considering it is hosted in the UK I'm surprised that Color is not spelled Colour (or is that a Canadian thing?)

@Karluk - your example is exactly what I was speaking about regarding using algorithms.

 

[Mike Lewis]

I'm just off to try playing in French

Well, that was a failure. I don't think I'll be trying that again. (Not helped by the fact that the solution actually contains four vowels.)

Mike

__________________________________
Mike Lewis (Edinburgh, Scotland)

Visual FoxPro articles, tips and downloads

 

[Mike Lewis]

Thanks for that, kwbMitel. I see that now, but I'm fairly sure there was no Hard Mode originally.

considering it is hosted in the UK I'm surprised that Color is not spelled Colour (or is that a Canadian thing?)

My understanding is that inventor, Mr Wardle, is a Welshman living in New York. But you're right. I noticed early on that the game uses US spellings. No doubt that will continue under the NY Times management.

Mike

__________________________________
Mike Lewis (Edinburgh, Scotland)

Visual FoxPro articles, tips and downloads

 

[feherke]

Hi

I found a variant where instead of limiting the guesses, the number of failed letters is limited :

https://murdle.vercel.app/

So here you have to be precautious with the non-hard specific strategy of revealing letters. In change trying those "sha[rpvlm]e" words only consumes 1 letter failure each.


Feherke.
feherke.github.io

 

[Rick C. Hodgin]

Just started playing. Love it.

--
Rick C. Hodgin