‘Wordle’ fever has creative variations, copies and even scams

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Launched in October of last year, the word guessing game “Wordle” has quickly become one of the biggest sensations on the internet. Simple, addictive and easily copyable, it has been an inspiration for several programmers, who play with the formula of the original title created by the American Josh Wardle and sold to The New York Times for a few million dollars (the exact value has not been revealed). ).

There are games that use the same rules, but with words with a variable number of letters (“Hello Wordl”), in which you have to guess an equation (“Nerdle”), in which the objective is to guess a country (“Worldle”) and with terms linked to specific subjects, ranging from climate change (“A Greener Worldle”) to pop singer Taylor Swift (“Taylordle”). For those who don’t dare to speak English, there are also versions in Portuguese: “Termo” (my favorite) and “Letreco” are the best known.

Among these variations, one of the most ingenious is “Absurdle”, a kind of antithesis of “Wordle”. The game follows the same basic rules (only with an unlimited number of attempts) and uses the same word dictionary as the original title, but the computer can change the secret word in a way that disturbs the player.

In a blog post, the game’s developer – who has already created a version of “Tetris” in which the player is always given the worst possible piece, called “Hate Tetris” – explains the logic behind the game.

• Instead of selecting a single secret word, the computer chooses a group of terms that obey the clues that the player has obtained so far.

• It is only possible to win the game with a lot of patience, a good vocabulary and after several letters have been tested.

But it’s not just well-meaning developers who are taking advantage of the craze.

There has been a multiplication of blatant copying of “Wordle” on app stores and websites seeking to profit from ads.

“Selling to The New York Times was a way of getting away from it. [lidar com cópias do jogo]. I didn’t want to be paying a lawyer to file cessation orders for a game that isn’t even giving me money,” Wardle said at the Game Developer Conference in San Francisco, according to The Independent.

It is also necessary to beware of apparently harmless versions of “Wordle”, but which work like malware (malicious program).

The Twitter User Eduardo Henrique, for example, discovered embedded in the code of the game “Olavooo” a cryptocurrency miner, which sucks processing power from the player’s computer and can result in overheating and crashes. The suspicion was later confirmed by the technology site Tecnoblog.

If knowing all these versions of “Wordle” makes you want to invent your own puzzle, you can try the “Wordle Generator” and challenge your friends to a match. Can you solve the riddle we created?

play

game tip, new or old, for you to test

knotwords
(Android, iOS and PC)

This time, the tip goes to an expert: “If you like ‘Wordle’ you should try ‘Knotwords’. It’s an incredibly elegant daily play on words. What struck me most is that despite its deceptively simple appearance , it was clearly built with great care and care,” said Josh Wardle on Twitter.

update

news, launches, business and what else matters

• Bethesda has announced the postponement of two of its major releases this year. “Starfield,” a long-awaited futuristic-themed open-world RPG initially slated for November, and “Redfall,” an open-world co-op vampire hunter game, are not expected to arrive until the first half of 2023.
• Electronic Arts has announced that it is developing a game set in the “Lord of the Rings” book universe. According to the company, “The Lord of the Rings: Heroes of Middle-earth” will be a free RPG for mobile phones. The first closed beta tests should start between June and August.
• Warner canceled the release of the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One versions of the game “Gotham Knights”. The title starring Batman’s sidekicks is scheduled for release on October 25, but now only for PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S.
• Nintendo announced that “Metroid Dread”, for Switch, has become the biggest commercial success of the franchise, surpassing the mark of 2.9 million copies sold. The record belonged to “Metroid Prime”, for GameCube, which had 2.84 million copies sold.

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​ ​games that will be released in the next few days and promotions that are worth it

May 17

• “Umurangi Generation”: BRL 127.45 (Xbox One/X/S)

May 19

• “Vampire: The Masquerade – Swansong”: R$94.99 (PC), R$222.45 (Xbox One/X/S), R$299.90 (PS 4/5)

May 20

• “Dolmen”: BRL 74.50 (PC), BRL 199.50 (PS 4/5), BRL 215 (Xbox One/X/S)

Promotion of the week

• The PC version of “Prey”, a great action game from Arkane (the same as the “Dishonored” and “Deathloop” series), is free until next Thursday (19), on the Epic Games Store. In addition to it, the action game inspired by Norse mythology “Jotun” and the futuristic racing game “Redout” are also free in the virtual store.

readings of the week

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