Friendship ended with Wordle, now Quordle is my best friend.
Do you remember that scene in Inception where Leonardo DiCaprio asks Elliot Page to remember how his character got to the cafe, and somehow they can't recall a single detail?
That's a bit like my relationship with Wordle: I was living peacefully, until I wasn't. The five-letter word game became a viral sensation, but something bigger and more challenging has caught puzzlers' eyes: say hello to Quordle.
Wordle, created by Josh Wardle, is a simple game: you have six attempts to solve a five-letter word, with every attempt hinting towards the answer. If you guess a correct letter, it'll turn yellow, and if you get it in the correct spot, it'll turn green.
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Now, imagine that stress, and quadruple it. In Quordle, you have to guess four five-letter words all at the same time.
There are some merciful concessions for players. For example, instead of the usual six guesses, you get nine in Quordle, with every guess appearing in all four fields.
You also have two different gameplay options: Daily Quordle, mirroring normal Wordle in that there's just one chance to compete every day, with the words changing every day; and Practice, which allows you to play ad infinitum to finesse your skills. Bear in mind though, the latter efforts don't count towards your streak.
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Quordle was created by a small group of fans in the wake of Wordle's success, coming after they found another spin-off, Dordle, which allows players to guess two five-letter words at the same time.
Quordle's creator Freddie Meyer was then so preoccupied with whether or not he could, that he didn't stop to think if he should, describing how engineer David Mah designed the first prototype 'in a moment of evil and genius'.
'It was truly horrific code (it even had two keyboards) but I knew that I had to continue the madness. With hindsight, he really baited me into finishing his monstrous creation,' he explains on Quordle's website.
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While Wordle was acquired by The New York Times for seven figures, Meyer says Quordle now has more than 500,000 players daily.
Especially with other spin-offs emerging, such as Heardle, Quordle has its fans - but it's a bit of a love/hate relationship. 'If you want to make yourself irrationally angry, play quordle every morning. That creator is a sadist,' one user tweeted.
You can play Quordle here.
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Topics: Gaming, Technology
