Wordle "Out" of 5-Letter Words

The New York Times, the purveyor of Wordle, announced today that they are "out" of acceptable 5-letter words. "We're not really sure what to do next," said Erik Schmidt, part of the Wordle team. "We could start repeating words, or we could start going more obscure." 

Using more obscure 5-letter words has proved to be a problem, however. Earlier this week Schmidt and his team received hate email and negative social media buzz when the Wordle of the day was "rupee." 

"The gist of the emails was that 'rupee' isn't a real English word," Schmidt said, "despite the fact that it is the legitimate English spelling of the currency used by 1.4 billion people in the world." The hashtag #rupeeisntawordle was trending on social media posts criticizing the game, which users play for free, and their "foreign" word choice.

"It just isn't fair that words like that can be part of Wordle," Lauren Jackson, 34, of Arizona said. "I had a 42-day streak going and I lost it all." This sentiment was echoed in other posts, calling the Wordle creators "elitist" and "word snobs." 

Gregory Graf, 58 of Illinois, echoes Jackson's sentiments saying, "I was one of the first people to discover Wordle among my friend group, and I brought a lot of people to the game. I'm disappointed that Wordle would take a left turn like this and use non-standard words." Graf is so offended that he is threatening to give up Wordle for good. "I just don't know if I can support them anymore," he says.

Wordle, which has some people touting it as the word-version of the classic game Mastermind, gives players 6 chances to guess a 5-letter word. The game gives the player feedback in the form of colored tiles when letters are placed correctly. 

Originally, Wordle creators were not anticipating running out of words so soon. "We had a Wordle bank of 2000 words at first, but with the advent of spin-off games like Quordle and Sedecordle, our word bank was decimated." Case-in-point: The Wordle of the Day was repeated in the Quordle a few days ago, and players immediately took to social media criticizing Wordle as "copycats."

Schmidt and his Wordle team are considering jumping into the 6-letter word market, however, he is worried that this may anger players even further. "We've got our best minds working to solve this major issue," Schmidt promises.

Game Comparisons 1: Logic Games-- Pyramix, Mastermind, Otrio

Pyramix and Mastermind are in our regular rotation of games we play as a family.  Otrio gets some play, but not as much as the others. 

--Pyramix--  

Levi:  

1. It is more strategy than luck. 
2. Quick play for newbies.  It takes about 5 minutes to explain the game, plus one round of play before a newbie is proficient enough to be a challenge.  

Ethan:

1. Game play is quick-- it takes about 15 minutes to play.
2. There are multiple strategies to win.  You can take ankhs to win a color or you can just focus on points and go for the eyes and cranes. 

Juliana:

1. You can try to predict what the other player is going to do and stop them.
2. You can plan some moves in advance. 
3. Younger players don't have a disadvantage.

Joy:

1.  The physical setup of the game is appealing.  It is in the shape of a pyramid made of six-sided dice.  As we pull pieces out, the others slide down.
2.  You can play with two, three, or four players.  The game is just as fun with 2 players as it is with 3 or 4 players. 

What we don't like:

1. If you lose one piece, the whole game is ruined.  
2.  There is no way to drop serpents down to the bottom to "poison" other players.  This only happens if serpents already start at the bottom.  This ability could add another layer of strategy to the game. 

--Mastermind--

What we like:  

Levi:

1.  The game is almost all strategy (very little luck at all).
2.   You can try to trick your opponent and play mind games with them. 

Ethan:

1. You can look back at what you have already done to help you figure out what to do next.
2. You don't have to play for a long time.  You can play just one round each, or you can keep playing and add up points. 
3.  You have to keep a poker face to play.

Juliana:

1.  It doesn't take very long to explain.
2. You have to think hard about your moves.

Joy:  

1.  This game is 100% logic-based.  You can apply logic to game play and there is only right or wrong answers. 
2. The game changes each time you set it up (it's all personal choice in how the codemaker wants to create the code. 

What we don't like:

1. So many tiny pegs. 😐  The black/white pegs are especially small and hard for little fingers. 

--Otrio--

Levi:

1. It's a skill-based game (no luck).
2. It's like Tic-Tac-Toe but so much better.  

Ethan:

1. It's hard to get a cat's game.  Someone almost always wins (unlike regular Tic-Tac-Toe).
2. I like that you are all rivals, but sometimes you have to work together to stop someone.
3. I also like that you can force someone else to use a turn to stop a player who is going to win.

Juliana:

1. There are multiple ways to get Otrio.
2. Everybody gets the same amount of pieces.
3. If you go first, there is an advantage (and youngest player usually gets to go first). 
4. It's fun with 2, 3, or 4 players.

Joy:

1. I love the wooden playing board and pieces. They are colorful and appealing.
2. Quick play for newbies.
3. You can set yourself up to win in multiple ways.  This requires planning. 

There's nothing we dislike about Otrio, but we don't play it as often as the others.

Meet Your Game Testers :)

Step 1 is to play play play our games so we get an idea of what we like and don't like about the games we play most.  Here are my favorite (and the cutest) game testers who are (almost) always ready for a game!

Levi --  Age 12 (almost 13!!)

Favorite Game:  Hero Realms

Least Favorite Game:  Monopoly

Ethan -- Age 10

Favorite Game:  Patchwork

Juliana -- Age 8

Favorite Game:  Splendor

Joy -- Ageless

Favorite Game:  I can't pick!  

Least Favorite Games:  Risk, Monopoly

Our Family Passion Project: Create a Board Game!

My family and I are big on board games.  We have quite a collection of games that we like to play together.  We play some of the traditional board games like Monopoly, Clue, and Battleship.  We play family games like Apples to Apples and Trivial Pursuit.  But our absolute favorites are some of the lesser-known strategy games.

Some of our favorites are:

  

Settlers of Catan
Carcassonne
Caverna
Ticket to Ride
Hero Realms
Splendor
Settlers of Catan (family style, dice game, 2 person card game)
Machi Koro
Lewis and Clark

Juliana is sad that I am beating her at Hero Realms.  I am the no-mercy-mommy!

Ethan's wheels are turning while playing Mastermind.

Levi beating me at Patchwork.

We love the website Board Game Geek for reviews, to discover new games, to watch how-to videos, and to clarify rules of game play.

So when faced with the challenge to come up with a 20% time Passion Project, I thought it would be fun to create my own board game. 

Where to start?  

Step 1:  Play a whole bunch of board games with my kids.  As a family, begin to log some of the characteristics of the game.  What do we like and dislike about this game?  What makes us want to play this game again?

Step 2:  Research what it takes to create a board game.  How much of a game should be skill and strategy?  How much should be chance?  How many is the "just right" number of players?  How much time should it take to explain the game to new players?

Step 3:  Brainstorm.  Write down all of my ideas and the ideas of my kids.  Do we want it to be a quest-type game?  A deck-building card game?  A resource strategy game?

Step 4:  To be continued... We'll have to do steps 1-3 and see what opens up from there!