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Wordle Is a Love Story

nytimes.com

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Re: Wordle Is a Love Story

#31

Post by slg »

iams wrote: post #19
slg wrote: post #8

I tried this game the last couple of days and I don't get the appeal. There is some skill involved, but there is also a huge amount of luck. For example yesterday I had "ti_er". I guessed "timer" but the actual word was "tiger". That left me with a score of 5 instead of 4. Does that say anything about my skill level as a player? Honestly, this seems to mostly be a marketing success story about the sharing score funct…

The skill is in not leaving yourself with two words that would both fit. If earlier you had tried a word with both an 'm' and a 'g' such as 'image' you would not have been left in a position where you would have to have a lucky guess

It is much easier to work backwards with that logic than forward. It is impossible to both try to guess the word while also trying to eliminate all possible overlaps that may occur with whatever results you get from the previous word. In this specific instance, I would have never played "image" because my first word was "tears" so I immediately knew there was a t, e, and r. There was no reason to try to determine if there was a g or m until I was presented with "ti_er".

Re: Wordle Is a Love Story

#32

Post by flanbiscuit »

dotsam wrote: post #18

Tip: don’t look at the source if you don’t want to see the answers (I thought the words might be obfuscated but they’re not)

I was wondering about this but I haven't looked yet.

...

So I just took a look now. Are you talking about the huge list of ~12,974 words embedded right in the code?

Re: Wordle Is a Love Story

#33

Post by evan_ »

wenc wrote: post #4

What’s your optimal 5-letter starting word? Mine is HOUSE. It has 3 vowels (including E which is the most frequent in the English language) and S which helps test for plurals.

I use "RENTS" which puts the S at the end as a quick test for plurals.

Re: Wordle Is a Love Story

#35

Post by dotsam »

flanbiscuit wrote: post #32
dotsam wrote: post #18

Tip: don’t look at the source if you don’t want to see the answers (I thought the words might be obfuscated but they’re not)

I was wondering about this but I haven't looked yet. ... So I just took a look now. Are you talking about the huge list of ~12,974 words embedded right in the code?

Yes, if like me you search the source for the word you just won with, you will see future answers, as they are listed in order (at least the preceding word was yesterday's answer)

Re: Wordle Is a Love Story

#36

Post by gojomo »

wenc wrote: post #4

What’s your optimal 5-letter starting word? Mine is HOUSE. It has 3 vowels (including E which is the most frequent in the English language) and S which helps test for plurals.

As a handicap, I'm now beginning each new day with the prior day's answer word.

Re: Wordle Is a Love Story

#37

Post by lostinquebec »

wenc wrote: post #4

What’s your optimal 5-letter starting word? Mine is HOUSE. It has 3 vowels (including E which is the most frequent in the English language) and S which helps test for plurals.

STEAR - not technically a word, but it is accepted, and hits the most common vowels and consonants.

Re: Wordle Is a Love Story

#38

Post by _bfhp »

slg wrote: post #14
rcoveson wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The appeal of vocabulary games is that they encourage you to flex your memory. They remind you of words you know that you might not use under normal circumstances. As for the luck, sure, there's some of that. But you have plenty of guesses to get to the word if you play according to letter frequency, and always maximize the information you'll get out of a guess. Think of it like counting cards. The goal is to shift t…

But the goal isn't just to complete the puzzle. At least in my social circle, there is much more focus on the score rather than on just completing it. There are other word games that have a much better balance of skill and luck. The NYT Spelling Bee game mentioned in the article is one example.

My friend group doesn't focus on score, we just celebrate getting lucky or lament if we take until the last try.

There is a point about luck taking away from the longevity of the game. Unless the developer adds more game dimensions (in the same minimal, non-intrusive way) I kinda think most people will stop playing in a few months

Re: Wordle Is a Love Story

#39

Post by spa3thyb »

slg wrote: post #8

I tried this game the last couple of days and I don't get the appeal. There is some skill involved, but there is also a huge amount of luck. For example yesterday I had "ti_er". I guessed "timer" but the actual word was "tiger". That left me with a score of 5 instead of 4. Does that say anything about my skill level as a player? Honestly, this seems to mostly be a marketing success story about the sharing score funct…

Of course it's luck based - it's mastermind with a preset number of mnemonic arrangements. I struggle with it too, but the problem with systems thinking is that you don't get to enjoy the magic which drives the fad.

Re: Wordle Is a Love Story

#40

Post by lalaithion »

iams wrote: post #23
lalaithion wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I coded some heuristics and ran them on a Scrabble dictionary: https://github.com/lalaithion/wordle

With the first word you aren't necessarily trying to get the most number of matches. You are trying to use the word that once you get the match result back, it discards the most number of words. These two are not the same thing.

Yes, as you'll see in the readme that I have numbers for both approaches. The first section is the average number of remaining words after getting the match result back, and the second section is the average number of yellow and green squares.
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