Inside review · 04 of 08
Wordle, reviewed
One five-letter word a day, six guesses, coloured tiles for clues.
Open Wordle on the official siteOur take
Wordle asks you to find one five-letter word in six guesses. After each guess the tiles change colour: green for a right letter in the right place, yellow for a letter that is in the word but elsewhere, grey for a letter that is not there at all. The puzzle is the same for everyone that day.
What makes it work is the limit. There is one puzzle a day, so a session is over in a few minutes whether you solve it or not. That makes it one of the easiest games on this list to fit into a routine without it taking over an evening.
Since the New York Times took it over, the browser version shows a short sign-in prompt for keeping statistics, but you can play without an account. If you want more of the same, the NYT archive and other daily word puzzles are there, but the single daily word is the heart of it.
A first sitting
Use a first guess with common, different letters, such as a word containing A, E, R, S and T. Then build each next guess around the greens and yellows rather than testing many new letters at once.
Where to stop
The daily limit does the work for you: once today's word is done, so is the game. Resist opening the archive straight after unless you planned to.
