Wordle has proven to be one of the strangest gaming sensations of 2022. The game is completely free to play and lets everyone, regardless of gaming experience, quickly train their brain every day by solving a seemingly simple word puzzle. Naturally, Wordle‘s sudden success has inspired quite a few copycats. However, that isn’t a bad thing.
The goal of Wordle is simple: Solve a five-letter word in six turns or less. The game throws players a bone by telling them which letters are in the word but in the wrong spot, and which letters are in the right spot. It’s a simple concept that has since inspired many other developers to create their own daily challenge games based on the idea of discovering some kind of hidden solution.
So, if you’re tired of Wordle (or if the idea of guessing a random five-letter word a day just never really appealed to you) consider one of these Wordle alternatives that may just become a part of your daily routine.
Waffle
Wordle gives players plenty of chances to guess the correct word, but everyone needs to start by guessing. If a user’s vocabulary of five-letter words is lacking, they might not get far. Plus, Wordle sometimes “cheats” and doesn’t indicate when letters are repeated. Waffle addresses those shortcomings.
Unlike Wordle, which forces players to guess which letters are in the daily words, Waffle tells users right off the bat which letters they need. From there, it’s up to players to shuffle them around correctly. The letters are arranged in a 5×5 waffle-like grid, hence the name. Like Wordle, Waffle shows which letters are in the right place and which ones aren’t via colors, but this game also challenges players to form six words in 15 tries. The result is a mix between Wordle and a classic crossword puzzle that focuses less on a player’s lexicon and more on their planning and critical thinking skills.
Heardle
In Wordle, players have to guess a random word. They don’t know if it’s a noun, verb, adjective, or preposition; their only hint is that it’s five letters long. While many Wordle-inspired clones follow a similar format, some experiment with that basic “guessing game” in rather unique ways.
Unlike other Wordle wannabes, Heardle asks players to identify a song based only on its opening seconds. Gamers only have six tries, and every failed attempt lets them play more of the song. Each guess in Heardle is pass/fail (players either get it or they don’t). However, the game features an autofill function so users don’t need to remember the entire song’s title. One word or the artist’s name is more than enough. If players can get over the hurdle of identifying songs one second at a time, they will probably enjoy Heardle.
Framed
If you like the idea of Heardle but consider yourself to be more of a film fan than a music aficionado, then Framed might be the game for you.
Framed tasks players with correctly guessing a movie based only on still images. As usual, users are given six tries, and each wrong guess nets them another image that should hopefully lead them down the right path. Like Heardle, each guess in Framed is pass/fail, and the game also uses autofill so players have zero chance of typing the title incorrectly. Anyone who ever wanted to flaunt their encyclopedic knowledge of movies (or maybe discover a new film) will get a kick out of Framed.
Squirdle
The world of Pokémon features over 900 unique species that come in a rainbow of types, body shapes, and sizes. Many players can readily identify a Pokémon based on its silhouette, but how many can identify them with Wordle rules? Squirdle asks this question.
Squirdle (a portmanteau of Wordle and Squirtle) dares players to identify a Pokémon using its generation, types, height, and weight. Every attempt helps and narrows down the pool of potential answers (learning that the correct Pokémon is part Ground-type and is heavier than a Flygon but smaller than a Golurk is more helpful than you think). Since Squirdle has more variables than other Wordle clones, the game offers eight chances instead of the standard six.
Crosswordle
In Wordle, players have to solve a five-letter word in six tries or less, and the game tells users when a letter is either in the word but not in the right spot or both in the word and right spot. But what would happen if you played that game in reverse? The answer is Crosswordle.
In Crosswordle, the “answer” is laid out at the bottom, and players have to utilize its letters to create four other words. Every other Crosswordle row includes scattered green and yellow tiles, which must be filled with the “appropriate” letters (i.e., a letter in a yellow block must be in the “solution” but not in the right spot). Any letter is fair game for the gray squares, so long as the resulting combination of letters forms a word. But as an additional challenge, once a letter is placed in a gray square, it can’t be used again. Despite its name, Crosswordle plays more like a word-based game of Sudoku.
Absurdle
Wordle and most of that game’s clones are built around a secret word, movie, Pokémon, or whatever that players have to guess in just a handful of attempts. However, one notable Wordle copycat lets players guess as many times as they want. The catch is that this game is evil.
On the surface, Absurdle plays like vanilla Wordle, but in reality, Absurdle uses a devious algorithm that reacts to players. The first few guesses will always be wrong since Absurdle is designed to remove every word with the initial letters from its pool of answers. The only way to win is to play with the idea that each subsequent guess diminishes Absurdle’s possible solutions. Eventually, players corner the algorithm and receive a yellow or even green square. From there, the game gets easier and starts to resemble regular Wordle, but many players give up before reaching that point. After all, it’s hard to win at a game that keeps moving the goalposts.
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Worldle
Most Wordle clones ask players to guess secret words based on intangible information. Worldle, meanwhile, relies on real-world knowledge of tangible locations and what they look like.
Like other Wordle wannabees, Worldle gives players six guesses to correctly identify the correct answer. The twist here is that you’re trying to identify a specific country. The game offers a silhouette of a random country in the world and asks players to type in their guess as to which country it is. If the player is wrong, the game literally them in the right direction. Yes, Worldle slowly tells users how far away the correct country is from their guess and in what direction. The only major downside is that Worldle is almost impossible to find via Google since it is one letter off from Wordle. Players who find the game are in for a treat, but those who can’t will get an equivalent experience with Globle.
Dungleon
Most Wordle-like games are based on the idea of finding something that already exists. That something could be a word, a movie title, a song, or a country, but whatever you’re trying to discover is usually some kind of established concept. Dungleon plays with that objective in interesting ways.
In Dungleon, players aren’t supposed to guess the correct word but instead arrange pixelated tokens in the correct order. These pictures include fantasy staples such as treasure chests, wizards, skeletons, and knights, and, as is Wordle tradition, Dungleon highlights which tokens are in the right or wrong spot. As usual, players also have six tries, but Dungleon also throws users a bone and gives them the option to either remove a picture that doesn’t belong or highlight one that does. In an internet full of Wordle wannabes, Dungleon‘s unique takes on the basics of the Wordle concept help it stand out.
Quordle
What’s harder than a game that tasks you with finding a five-letter word in only six guesses? A game with four times as many secret words with only a few more guesses to work with.
Quordle is as straightforward as Wordle but with a devious catch: players have nine guesses to solve four five-letter words. Each word is different, so even when one letter is in the correct spot in one word, it might be in the wrong spot in another. Or it might not be in the other words at all. While solving one word in Quordle removes it from the board, the game still forces players to ration their guesses far more than vanilla Wordle.
Nerdle
Number maestros tend to make the world go round, so it just makes sense that there’s a Wordle clone designed to test your math skills.
While Nerdle sounds like a Wordle-like game that challenges players to identify sci-fi objects and spaceships, it actually asks players to create simple equations. Each equation consists of eight characters (including numbers and basic mathematical symbols such as “+” and “=”). Like other Wordle-inspired games, Nerdle tells players which characters are in the solution but in the wrong spot and which ones are in the right spot, but it isn’t a stickler for the exact order. If the solution is “10+20=30,” the game will accept “20+10=30” as well. However, Nerdle is a stickler for the standard order of operations, so always multiply and divide before you add and subtract!
The Box Office Game
If you’re the kind of movie fan that thinks they have an encyclopedic knowledge of box office history, The Box Office Game is your best chance to show off your skills this side of movie trivia night.
The Box Office Game asks you to name the top five highest-grossing movies from a random week in cinematic history. You’re able to reveal certain hints (such as the movie’s tagline, director, or actors), but each hint you request will lower your total overall score. If nothing else, this game is a fascinating way to explore box office history and see which movies that once topped the charts have since been forgotten.
Squabble
If Wordle is just a little too calm for you, then you have to try Squabble: a competitive version of the popular word game that has proven to be a humbling experience for many.
Squabble is basically a battle royale spin-off of Worlde that sees you compete with up to 99 other players to see who will be the last Wordle player (Wordler?) standing. You might go into this one feeling pretty good about your Wordle skills, but you’ll soon discover that you’ve been eliminated before you can even make a reasonable guess. While the game occasionally suffers from balancing issues, it’s usually a pretty fun time.
Passwordle
Passwordle challenges you with the daunting task of trying to “crack” a 12-character password in just six guesses. If that sounds like it would be almost impossibly difficult…well, that’s kind of the point.
Passwordle was developed by a security expert who was seemingly interested in showcasing the value of a truly tough password. It’s technically possible to crack the game’s daily codes, but you really do have to buy into the pleasure of the guessing process in order to get the most out of this fascinating thought experiment.
Speedle
As the name suggests, Speedle is basically a speedrun version of Wordle that is perfect for those who tend to solve regular Wordle games a bit too fast and want to really test their limits.
Speedle benefits from a variety of custom parameters that allow you to essentially create the hardest version of Wordle you can imagine. It lacks the casual charm of the base game, but it’s one of the better “unlimited” Wordle variants out there.
Spelling Bee
Spelling Bee tasks you with trying to create as many 4+ letter words as possible from a daily selection of 7 letters. The twist is that one of those seven letters is highlighted in yellow, which means that it has to be in every word you create.
Spelling Bee is about as simple as a daily word game gets, which is honestly a big part of the reason why it’s so charming and addictive. It’s a fantastic brain teaser that quickly proves to be significantly more difficult than you may suspect it would be.