Impossible to miss on social networks. For the past few weeks, the news feeds have been invaded by mysterious publications composed only of black, yellow and green squares.
Behind these enigmatic messages hides the phenomenon of this beginning of the year: Wordle. However, nothing intended this project to go viral and its creator is now overwhelmed by its success.
More than 3 million players per day
Launched in the fall of 2021, Wordle was designed by Josh Wardle, a computer scientist in his thirties who wanted to entertain his wife, faithful to the word games of the New York Times. The object of the game is simple: find a five-letter word in six attempts. Letters that are well placed are shown in one color and those that are not in another. In short, it’s the same principle as Motus, except that there is only one word to guess per day.
What was just a simple project to keep busy during the pandemic has become in a few months viral to the point of being the real phenomenon of this beginning of the year in the United States. Its success is surely explained by several factors, the most important being that it is not time-consuming. Its resolution does not take more than three minutes a day, flatters those who succeed and above all is shared on social networks. It also has no commercial purpose: no ads, no notifications, no monetization, no email address to enter. Just access the web address of the game and solve the puzzle without any interruption.
A success that took its creator by surprise
Starting with 80,000 players per day in November, the game brought together 300,000 in early January to approach 3 million daily players today. A success as exponential as it was unexpected which took its creator by surprise, not wishing to burn-out for a project simply designed in his spare time.
” Personally, I don’t find it great, because it makes me responsible vis-à-vis the players, I have to guarantee them that everything works, all the time, and I don’t want this game, which is not my real work, become a source of stress and anxiety in my life “, did he declare. He promises, however, that Wordle will always be free, except that copies quickly appeared on the application stores, pushing Google and Apple to clean up. In France, a French-speaking equivalent circulates: Sutom. It uses exactly the same concept, including its free and fast.
Source: FranceInfo
, wordle
, sutom
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