Wordle has taken the world by storm and it seems to be like Marmite – you love it or hate it. So, if you’re fed up here’s some great alternatives to try instead.
Whether I am walking between lectures on campus or having a drink at the pub, at least one of my friends will have that dreaded grey, yellow and green grid up on their phone screen.
As someone not really into Wordle, I have had to find my own similar games to play whilst everyone else is guessing the word of the day. So, if you are fed up with Wordle or want to try out a new alternative, then I would recommend the following games:
Heardle
As the latest Wordle spin-off, this app is probably the most recently trending. The creators of Heardle have described it as ‘a respectful homage to Wordle, with a musical twist’.
Instead of guessing a word from letters, the task is to guess a song from sound snippets. You have six attempts to get the song, with the soundbite increasing in length by a second each time.
While the premise of the game sounds pretty easy, it can actually be quite difficult to guess the answer correctly from just a short introduction. Furthermore, quite a few of the songs are from the current charts or more recent hits, so your music knowledge has to be fairly up-to-date, too.
Worldle
Worldle is perfect for any geography fans out there who have a pretty good knowledge of the world map. There is no grid and there are no letters. All you initially get is the outline of a country. Pretty tough, right? Well, you do get a few more clues along the way.
After you have taken a guess, the game will proceed to tell you how many kilometres off you are from the target country, which compass direction the target country is in, and a percentage proximity of how close you are.
One thing I can say I have learnt from playing this game myself is that there are a lot more countries in the world than you would think.
Lewdle
Ever been told you need to wash your mouth out with soap? If so, perhaps Lewdle is the game for you. It is pretty much exactly the same as Wordle in that it is a daily game, you are guessing a five-letter word and the colour of the tiles will change to inform you of how close your guess is to the final word.
However, as can probably quite easily be gleaned from its name, there is the major difference of Lewdle only involving rude words that would be considered profanity. Whilst it is quite a lot of fun, I would recommend playing with friends over family, as you can never be quite sure what words are going to come up.
Squirdle
As someone who never really was into Pokémon, this one flew right over my head. Nevertheless, as soon as I told my Pokémon-obsessed friend about it, they were nothing short of over the moon.
If you have not already figured it out, Squirdle is the Pokémon version of Wordle. Instead of guessing a word in six goes, you are given eight chances to guess a single Pokémon character from the entire Pokédex, out of which there are almost 900 answers. Rather than being told which letters are correct, users are given clues about generation, height, weight, and type 1 and 2.
Nerdle
Who would have thought that a game about words would go on to inspire a similar one based on maths? Certainly not me, especially given that I hate anything vaguely numbers-related. Rather than aiming for a word, you are trying to figure out the calculation. Any numerical characters can be used from 0 to 9, alongside +, -, * and /.
The final answer must contain an = as the penultimate symbol, which provides some consistency. However, again in a similar vein to Wordle, players get six guesses and the colours of the tiles change to show how close you are to the solution. Whilst I will not be playing this one any time soon, I would definitely recommend it for any STEM majors out there.
