Wordle craze spawns fun copycats

Laura Landsbaum

Ms. Landsbaum’s Wordle on Sept. 14. She is one of many addicted to the daily puzzle challenge from the New York Times.

Wordle from the New York Times came out in October 2021, and since then, it has become one of the most widely known word games of all time. Different variants of wordle have been created since the original game. These variants featured movies, music, pop culture, new difficulties, and geography; but which variants are actually worth playing?

Hello Wordl is the same as the original Wordle, however, it features words as short as 4 letters to as long as 11 letters. The variety of Hello Wordl makes it slightly better than the classic Wordle, but is still missing the spice that other variants offer.
Heardle is a musical Wordle created by Spotify where a few seconds of a song are played at a time. The objective is to guess the song. This version has a variety of music, but is more difficult for people with a more niche music taste.
Of all the new Wordle variants, the most fun and engaging by far is Quordle, in which the player must guess 4 words at once, with 9 guesses total. Because guessing 4 words in only 9 guesses is very difficult, Quordle might not be for everyone, but it does offer a nice challenge for more experienced players. If Quordle is too easy for you, try Octordle which has 8 words at once.
Framed, Posterdle, and Moviedle are all very similar movie related Wordles. While these are fun, they are too difficult if you haven’t seen the movie, but too easy if you have. Movie themed Wordles may be fun for the types of people who love to nerd out about film, but overall, these were just not exciting enough.
My geography nerd brother really enjoyed Globle, despite the confusion of red meaning good in this game. He liked Globle more than Worldle, even though he thought Worldle was easier. He liked that Globle showed the whole Earth and that Worldle gave the exact distance and direction from the guess to the actual country. His only critique was that Globle is not similar enough to Wordle to be called a variant. We also played Wheredle, which was a US Geography Wordle. My brother thought this one was too easy but I liked it.
Of all the Wordle variants, I liked Quordle and Octordle the best because they were more challenging, but not too challenging. The worst, in my opinion, were the movie Wordles because they were not very engaging.