Say hello to the Wordle board game

The New York Times is wringing the online word puzzle for all it’s worth.  

Going retro 

There ain’t no party like a Wordle party, right? After taking the wordy world by storm, Wordle enjoyed an omnipresence in the lives of millions and still remains a major part of many people’s daily routine.  

Initially developed as a fun game by software engineer Josh Wardle for him and his girlfriend to play, the five-letter guessing game was bought out by The New York Times earlier this year. The ‘low seven-figure’ purchase, purported to be around $1 million, was deemed a raging success, bringing “an unprecedented tens of millions of new users to The Times” and driving the New York Times Games’ best quarter ever for net subscriber additions. 

Now, with the taste of success still lingering, the next step in the Wordle journey will see the Times bring it into physical form.  

Board game or bored game? 

Most of us know how the solitary online version of Wordle works. But what about this new, physical, and multi-player version? It seems simple enough: One player will think of a five-letter word, and the others will try and guess it first on their dry-erase boards – with the word-thinker sliding the famous yellow and green tiles over the correct letters. One player thinks of a five-letter word that other players have to try and guess first. Simple enough.  

Whether it’ll be a hit or not remains to be seen. The joy of Wordle is the ease of access, and the personal challenge. Could this translate to a multi-player game? Let’s grab a board some time and find out.