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> I could take an ad Why? There is objectively nothing that NYT could add to the game to make it more interesting. It can only make it worse.

RC_ITR 5y ago
- peeters 5y ago
  > You can feel any way you want about NYT, but you’d argue that “multiple word length” options wouldn’t make the game better for some? Or hybridizing it with the crossword? Anything that takes away from everyone getting the same word on the same day will absolutely nuke its popularity. There's really nothing novel about the game to make it popular other than that. Don't get me wrong, it's fun and well implemented, but the concept existed before Wordle. What makes Wordle successful is how dirt-simple it is to share your results on any medium.
  - RC_ITR 5y ago
    - ragebol 5y ago
      I would never have found the game (and played it) without those results being shared. Anecdata, sure, and correlation != causation an all that, but I have to agree.
  - ragebol 5y ago
    There is/was a Dutch TV show called Lingo that is based on the same game and I'd expect there to be more such shows. Only variations the TV show has is the 6 word version on Saturday and some comedians made a sketch with a 19 letter version: words like "Marshallplanachtige" [0] [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7CR1v1fKW0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7CR1v1fKW0 EDIT: of course there's also this classic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7qxpAUKy4c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7qxpAUKy4c in which some dude tries to not say a word he probably saw in a porno but does have to say it of course so mispronounces.
  - ouchjars 5y ago
    > everyone getting the same word on the same day Not really true as it is, being based on local time. For example, there's only a one hour period each day where someone in New Zealand and someone in Hawaii have the same word. Fortunatly Wordle clearly signals it with a countdown timer, instead of leaving it up to the reader to figure out what "day" they mean like other daily puzzle sites or people on the internet in general.
- rlt 5y ago
  Have you considered your impulse to make everything bigger, better, more efficient, more configurable, more profitable, etc is actually the “small minded” one in this day and age?
  - RC_ITR 5y ago
    No, because I'm not the one speaking in absolutes about hypotheticals? I'm trying to keep my mind open to possibility?
    - misnome 5y ago
      Okay, how about being open to the possibility that it’s exactly the simplicity and stress-free minimalism that has led to its success and popularity?
      - RC_ITR 5y ago
        You are getting caught up in emotion. GP stated “NYT can only ruin wordle”. I said that’s small minded. He may be right! It’s the certainty that is so anti-hacker! Just because you like something doesn’t mean it can’t be improved! Isn’t that literally what hacking is?!?!
        kelnos 5y ago
        > You are getting caught up in emotion. What else is there? People don't enjoy the game because of logic and reason, they enjoy it because of emotion: it's fun, you get a feeling of accomplishment when you win, when you lose, you feel driven to do better tomorrow, etc. It's all very very simple, and that's what's great about it. Please stop with the "that's anti-hacker" rhetoric. That's the kind of talk designed to shut down discussion. I think it's only natural to be cynical of a big corporation like NYT buying up a small one-person creation. Wordle is great as it is. Maybe there are ways to improve it, but I doubt NYT can do anything the original developer can do, at least not without completely changing the game into something it's not.
- Bud 5y ago
  If you think "multiple word length" would enhance the game, you haven't thought for very long about what makes the game work. It basically has to be 5 letters or the entire structure falls apart. As for Craigslist, I suspect there's not "a reason". I imagine it's a lot of different, complex reasons.
  - RC_ITR 5y ago
    Ok I’m ignorant. Why only 5 letters? Also one could argue the root cause of those many, complex reasons is under-investment in R&D based in the assumption “the current product is perfect”
    - tehbeard 5y ago
      Timing for the game loop and accessibility. 5 letters gives enough options without requiring the player to have access to a lot of guesses to have any hope of winning, and gives the game a short playtime. It's built to be quick to play. You can play it on a commute, or dip in a few times throughout the day. You wouldn't have that progress visible to players with a larger problem space. Tangentially, you'd also wind up having to lean more on "technical" (as in scoped to a particular domain, not technological) language in order to fill the list. That limits access to those outside of that field of study.
      - RC_ITR 5y ago
        You’re just describing positive aspects of the game in its current state, not “anything other than 5 letters causes the game to fall apart”
  - needle0 5y ago
    While I'm not absolute on the notion that 5 letters is perfect, I found the current game lives on quite a precarious balance; There is a Japanese version with around 65 possible letters, and the secret word being 4 letters, but this turns out to be significantly harder, with the game rules adjusted accordingly to allow up to 12 tries. Despite being able to play it in my mother tongue, I found it less fun. Tweaking the formula (even in English) will likely require lot of thought into re-balancing.
- richsouth 5y ago
  They do so much stupid stuff in the crossword (REBUS, missing letters, un-ordered phrases) that they can make a mess of anything. I HOPE they'll keep it as it is but just charge for past Wordles. That's the only improvement they could make.
  - pfarrell 5y ago
    They do so much stupid stuff in the crossword (REBUS, missing letters, un-ordered phrases) Those are the meta game puzzles which generally happen on Wed or Thu. They can be frustrating, but the “aha!” moment, when you discover what’s going on, is the point. Those puzzles are the ones that set NYT crosswords as the gold standard and show off the creativity of the puzzle makers. Of course YMMV.
- rglullis 5y ago
  There are already a gazillion variations of the game out there. Any kid can take the core idea and make an open source version with all these configurations. Actually it has already been done, just look for the "evil wordle" version that was some "show HN". My point is that, while is nice for the original creator that he could find someone to give that much money for the game, this valuation is only based on how much rent the NYT might be able to extract from it, not from the value of the creation itself. And that tells me that as an user I have nothing to benefit from this acquisition.
  - RC_ITR 5y ago
    It’s amazing how confident people in this forum can be about things they have no insight into sometimes. You may be right! But what’s your evidence for “NYT is into seeking rent”?
    - rglullis 5y ago
      > But what’s your evidence for “NYT is into seeking rent”? Aside from the eyeballs, please tell me what value is there in the wordle property to justify buying it for millions of dollars? If the game itself was using interesting closed technology or had any other kind of intellectual property attached to it, then maybe it could be justified. But nobody spends that amount of money if they are not looking for ways to make it back manifold.
      - RC_ITR 5y ago
        You don't think 'Good UX" is technology? EDIT: or are you implying that NYT should have just copied it, rather than rewarding the creator?
        rglullis 5y ago
        If the product already has millions of users who need no training or coaching to get using it, the "Good UX" is already there. > Are you implying that NYT should have just copied it, rather than rewarding the creator? I am not implying anything. I am stating that the only thing that the NYT (or anyone else really) would be interested in buying from wordle is the user base, they made an investment and they will look for ways to get their money back. Everything else is easy to replicate. It's hard to think of a way where they can get their money back that doesn't destroy or puts a limit on the things that make it so appealing to people. If you think that any corporation has any interest of giving away millions of dollars to someone as "reward", I have a bridge to sell you.
hanspeter 5y ago
They could serve the correct words from server side so that it's not trivial to find them. The original creator was not able to do that due to infrastructure limitations, but surely NYT would have the proper setup to handle that.
- bdamm 5y ago
  It always loads fast. Quite a nice feature..
- unmole 5y ago
  Again, how does that improve the game?
  - callahad 5y ago
    For context, a Twitter bot was recently banned for automatically replying to Wordle tweets and spoiling the next day's word. Preventing that would improve the gameplay experience by defending against malicious disruption.
    - bspammer 5y ago
      We know that wordle is completely trivial for computers to solve. Hiding the solutions won’t do anything to stop that particular behavior. The game is perfect as is, and I’m sad that it will now be used to make money.
    - yardstick 5y ago
      Not really. The bot can get its data from when NZ hits midnight, hours and hours before America and Europe etc. Even if it was always released at the exact same time globally, nothing to stop a bot solving it / fetching it immediately and replying to users posts from yesterday about what todays one is.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
- Spare_account 5y ago

RC_ITR 5y ago

peeters 5y ago
> You can feel any way you want about NYT, but you’d argue that “multiple word length” options wouldn’t make the game better for some? Or hybridizing it with the crossword? Anything that takes away from everyone getting the same word on the same day will absolutely nuke its popularity. There's really nothing novel about the game to make it popular other than that. Don't get me wrong, it's fun and well implemented, but the concept existed before Wordle. What makes Wordle successful is how dirt-simple it is to share your results on any medium.
- RC_ITR 5y ago
  - ragebol 5y ago
    I would never have found the game (and played it) without those results being shared. Anecdata, sure, and correlation != causation an all that, but I have to agree.
- ragebol 5y ago
  There is/was a Dutch TV show called Lingo that is based on the same game and I'd expect there to be more such shows. Only variations the TV show has is the 6 word version on Saturday and some comedians made a sketch with a 19 letter version: words like "Marshallplanachtige" [0] [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7CR1v1fKW0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7CR1v1fKW0 EDIT: of course there's also this classic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7qxpAUKy4c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7qxpAUKy4c in which some dude tries to not say a word he probably saw in a porno but does have to say it of course so mispronounces.
- ouchjars 5y ago
  > everyone getting the same word on the same day Not really true as it is, being based on local time. For example, there's only a one hour period each day where someone in New Zealand and someone in Hawaii have the same word. Fortunatly Wordle clearly signals it with a countdown timer, instead of leaving it up to the reader to figure out what "day" they mean like other daily puzzle sites or people on the internet in general.
rlt 5y ago
Have you considered your impulse to make everything bigger, better, more efficient, more configurable, more profitable, etc is actually the “small minded” one in this day and age?
- RC_ITR 5y ago
  No, because I'm not the one speaking in absolutes about hypotheticals? I'm trying to keep my mind open to possibility?
  - misnome 5y ago
    Okay, how about being open to the possibility that it’s exactly the simplicity and stress-free minimalism that has led to its success and popularity?
    - RC_ITR 5y ago
      You are getting caught up in emotion. GP stated “NYT can only ruin wordle”. I said that’s small minded. He may be right! It’s the certainty that is so anti-hacker! Just because you like something doesn’t mean it can’t be improved! Isn’t that literally what hacking is?!?!
      - kelnos 5y ago
        > You are getting caught up in emotion. What else is there? People don't enjoy the game because of logic and reason, they enjoy it because of emotion: it's fun, you get a feeling of accomplishment when you win, when you lose, you feel driven to do better tomorrow, etc. It's all very very simple, and that's what's great about it. Please stop with the "that's anti-hacker" rhetoric. That's the kind of talk designed to shut down discussion. I think it's only natural to be cynical of a big corporation like NYT buying up a small one-person creation. Wordle is great as it is. Maybe there are ways to improve it, but I doubt NYT can do anything the original developer can do, at least not without completely changing the game into something it's not.
Bud 5y ago
If you think "multiple word length" would enhance the game, you haven't thought for very long about what makes the game work. It basically has to be 5 letters or the entire structure falls apart. As for Craigslist, I suspect there's not "a reason". I imagine it's a lot of different, complex reasons.
- RC_ITR 5y ago
  Ok I’m ignorant. Why only 5 letters? Also one could argue the root cause of those many, complex reasons is under-investment in R&D based in the assumption “the current product is perfect”
  - tehbeard 5y ago
    Timing for the game loop and accessibility. 5 letters gives enough options without requiring the player to have access to a lot of guesses to have any hope of winning, and gives the game a short playtime. It's built to be quick to play. You can play it on a commute, or dip in a few times throughout the day. You wouldn't have that progress visible to players with a larger problem space. Tangentially, you'd also wind up having to lean more on "technical" (as in scoped to a particular domain, not technological) language in order to fill the list. That limits access to those outside of that field of study.
    - RC_ITR 5y ago
      You’re just describing positive aspects of the game in its current state, not “anything other than 5 letters causes the game to fall apart”
- needle0 5y ago
  While I'm not absolute on the notion that 5 letters is perfect, I found the current game lives on quite a precarious balance; There is a Japanese version with around 65 possible letters, and the secret word being 4 letters, but this turns out to be significantly harder, with the game rules adjusted accordingly to allow up to 12 tries. Despite being able to play it in my mother tongue, I found it less fun. Tweaking the formula (even in English) will likely require lot of thought into re-balancing.
richsouth 5y ago
They do so much stupid stuff in the crossword (REBUS, missing letters, un-ordered phrases) that they can make a mess of anything. I HOPE they'll keep it as it is but just charge for past Wordles. That's the only improvement they could make.
- pfarrell 5y ago
  They do so much stupid stuff in the crossword (REBUS, missing letters, un-ordered phrases) Those are the meta game puzzles which generally happen on Wed or Thu. They can be frustrating, but the “aha!” moment, when you discover what’s going on, is the point. Those puzzles are the ones that set NYT crosswords as the gold standard and show off the creativity of the puzzle makers. Of course YMMV.
rglullis 5y ago
There are already a gazillion variations of the game out there. Any kid can take the core idea and make an open source version with all these configurations. Actually it has already been done, just look for the "evil wordle" version that was some "show HN". My point is that, while is nice for the original creator that he could find someone to give that much money for the game, this valuation is only based on how much rent the NYT might be able to extract from it, not from the value of the creation itself. And that tells me that as an user I have nothing to benefit from this acquisition.
- RC_ITR 5y ago
  It’s amazing how confident people in this forum can be about things they have no insight into sometimes. You may be right! But what’s your evidence for “NYT is into seeking rent”?
  - rglullis 5y ago
    > But what’s your evidence for “NYT is into seeking rent”? Aside from the eyeballs, please tell me what value is there in the wordle property to justify buying it for millions of dollars? If the game itself was using interesting closed technology or had any other kind of intellectual property attached to it, then maybe it could be justified. But nobody spends that amount of money if they are not looking for ways to make it back manifold.
    - RC_ITR 5y ago
      You don't think 'Good UX" is technology? EDIT: or are you implying that NYT should have just copied it, rather than rewarding the creator?
      - rglullis 5y ago
        If the product already has millions of users who need no training or coaching to get using it, the "Good UX" is already there. > Are you implying that NYT should have just copied it, rather than rewarding the creator? I am not implying anything. I am stating that the only thing that the NYT (or anyone else really) would be interested in buying from wordle is the user base, they made an investment and they will look for ways to get their money back. Everything else is easy to replicate. It's hard to think of a way where they can get their money back that doesn't destroy or puts a limit on the things that make it so appealing to people. If you think that any corporation has any interest of giving away millions of dollars to someone as "reward", I have a bridge to sell you.

hanspeter 5y ago

They could serve the correct words from server side so that it's not trivial to find them. The original creator was not able to do that due to infrastructure limitations, but surely NYT would have the proper setup to handle that.

bdamm 5y ago
It always loads fast. Quite a nice feature..
unmole 5y ago
Again, how does that improve the game?
- callahad 5y ago
  For context, a Twitter bot was recently banned for automatically replying to Wordle tweets and spoiling the next day's word. Preventing that would improve the gameplay experience by defending against malicious disruption.
  - bspammer 5y ago
    We know that wordle is completely trivial for computers to solve. Hiding the solutions won’t do anything to stop that particular behavior. The game is perfect as is, and I’m sad that it will now be used to make money.
  - yardstick 5y ago
    Not really. The bot can get its data from when NZ hits midnight, hours and hours before America and Europe etc. Even if it was always released at the exact same time globally, nothing to stop a bot solving it / fetching it immediately and replying to users posts from yesterday about what todays one is.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
Spare_account 5y ago