Since the rise of The New York Times’ “Wordle,” many different variations and spin-offs of the famous game have become very popular as well. Coming in all different genres, there is a Wordle variation for everyone. Being the Wordle connoisseur that I am, I set out to try as many different types of this word puzzle as possible. After trying almost twenty different kinds of this game, here are a few of the ones that stuck out to me. 

Quordle

Practically Wordle on steroids, Quordle is just like the original, except the goal is to guess four different words at the same time. Very similar to Wordle, when you enter a word it will tell you which words have letters that are in the word that you guessed. Obviously, guessing four words is way harder than guessing just one, so you are given nine guesses instead of six. Upon trying Quordle a couple of times, I realized that a strategy is definitely necessary in order to guess all four words in nine tries. It is difficult to not get caught up and spend all your attempts on one word. Getting all of the words correct is definitely difficult, but in my opinion, the challenge is what makes Quordle fun. 

Nerdle

If you have any interest in math, then Nerdle would be the puzzle for you. Nerdle has the same concept as Wordle, but rather than guessing a word, the goal is to decipher a math equation. In Nerdle, you get six tries to guess the correct eight-digit equation. The equation must be mathematically correct as well, which makes it a bit more tedious to figure out. One nice thing about Nerdle is that commutative property applies when trying to solve the puzzle, so if you typed in 23+76=99 and the correct answer was 76+23=99, you would still get it right. I do not mind math so Nerdle is usually fun for me, but sometimes it can be more frustrating to solve than one would think. 

Globle

Even the geography geeks have a Wordle variation that is right up their alley. In the game Globle, the goal is to guess the country of the day in the fewest number of guesses. Different to the majority of Wordle spin-offs, you are allowed an unlimited number of attempts to guess the correct answer in Globle. When you guess a country, it will pop up on the globe in a certain color depending on how close in distance your guess is to the correct country. The farther your guess is away, the lighter it is, and the color gets darker as your guesses get closer to the correct country. So, Globle is practically a game of hot and cold until you get the answer right. If I am being honest, I am not one who knows much about geography at all, so it usually takes me at least 15 tries to find the correct country. Regardless, I still find Globle enjoyable, and I would recommend it to anyone (even if you are like me and have limited geographic knowledge). 

Heardle

Perhaps the most unique Wordle spin-off I encountered is Heardle, where the objective is to guess the song of the day in six tries. First, you listen to one second of the song, and then you are given the option to either take a guess or skip your attempt and listen to another piece of the song. Each time you guess the song incorrectly or skip your attempt, another chunk of the song will be played on top of what was just played. Heardle uses songs from multiple genres, time periods and artists, so there is no way to predict what kind of song will be played next. Not only would music lovers enjoy Heardle, but they would also be able to discover many new songs through playing the game. While I do listen to music a lot, there have been many songs that I have not been able to guess. My favorite part of Heardle is getting to listen to the full song once you are done with the puzzle; this game is a great way to find new songs to add to your playlist. 

Letterle

I honestly cannot believe that this game actually exists. Letterle is unfortunately exactly what it sounds like. The goal of Letterle is to guess the letter of the day in the least amount of tries as possible. To make this puzzle even more ridiculous, there is not even an indication as to if you are close to the letter or not. They could have at least created a similar concept to Globle where the shade of the letter gets darker as you make guesses that are close to the correct letter in the alphabet, but no. It is literally just clicking random keys until you get it right. The only good thing about this pointless game is that a literal six-month-old could play it if you put a keyboard in front of them. At least it is age inclusive, I guess.