I Love These Three Wordle Spin-Offs More Than Wordle

If you haven’t heard of Wordle, you must be living under a rock.

Heck, I live under a metaphorical rock, and I’ve heard of it. Wordle is an offshoot of several popular games. Cows-and-bulls is four-letter word game that originated in the 1960s, the grand daddy of them all. Then came Mastermind, a variant of cows-and-bulls that employs colors instead of words.

These games never had the scope of going viral, they were too complex for the ordinary man. Wordle removed the complexity. Anybody can solve a Wordle puzzle. 

The success of Wordle spawned many spin-offs. This article lists as many as 40 popular spin-offs. Three spin-offs caught my attention (and sent me down more rabbit holes than you’ll get me to admit).

Sedecordle

There is Dordle – two Wordle puzzles in one game.

Then there is Quordle – four Wordle puzzles in one game.

Eight is your lucky number? Go For Octordle, Eight Wordle puzzles in one game.

For the bravehearts (translated to insane people), Sedecordle comes to the forefront: 16 Wordle games in one.

You have 21 guesses to solve all 16 puzzles. 

I love Sedecordle. I invariably win every puzzle (assuming I’m not lazy). The strategies I use to win at Sedecordle is an article for another day. 

Phrazle 

A google search led me to wordhurdle.in, which gave six-letter Wordle puzzles. I loved it. Soon, I this website was housed under solitaired.com. I assume solitaired.com acquired this website.

In addition to the six-letter variant, Solitaired.com offered four-letter and five-letter Wordle puzzles. They offered something much more cool. Phrazle – A Wordle puzzle where you have to guess a phrase.

There is an additional dimension of complexity – a letter may be present but in a wrong word. Purple indicates this scenario. As with Wordle, you are allowed to only enter legitimate words. Thankfully, the word need not make sense. 

I love this puzzle. All sorts of phrases, proverbs, pop-culture catch phrases are fair game.

Phrazle is one of my favorite Wordle spin-off.

Nerdle

You need to guess the correct equation. As simple as that.

You should enter numbers and arithmetic operators, an equal sign, and the final answer. 

The catch: the equation you enter must compute correctly.

The Last Word

Did you know the hard mode in wordle? You must use all the letters you uncovered in the previous round. If you guessed a letter in the correct place, subsequent guesses must contain this letter in the same place.

If you thought Wordle was too easy, try playing in the hard mode.

You may find that the hard mode is not all that hard!

Image Credit: Nils Huenerfuerst from Unsplash