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By Marc McLaren
published 27 March 2023
Wordle enters uncharted territory from today
(Image credit: ShutterStock)
When the New York Times bought Wordle in February 2022, it assured its millions of players that nothing would change about the game they'd fallen in love with. Wordle would still be Wordle, and most wouldn't even notice any difference.
The change was reported in a Reddit thread, with the poster, u/TrackVol, explaining that a json file within the Wordle site's code listed an "Unexpected solution" for today, March 27, 2023.
click for spoilers
The thread didn't reveal what the answer was beforehand - and I didn't want to know - but it turns out it was a pretty difficult one.
As you'll now know if you've played today's puzzle, it's GUANO, a word that refers to, well, bird poo - or specifically the bird poo of sea birds and bats that is used as a fertilizer. No, this is not your average Wordle answer.
Indeed, it's already causing quite a few problems among players who share their games on Twitter.
Wordle 646 X/6*Not a chance this a.m - not heard of this word 😔 ⬜⬜🟨⬜⬜🟨🟨⬜⬜⬜⬜🟩⬜⬜🟨⬜🟩⬜🟩⬜⬜🟩⬜🟩🟨🟩🟩⬜🟩⬜March 27, 2023
At the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco last week, Zoe Bell, Executive Producer of New York Times Games, talked about the publication's first year of owning Wordle. As our sister site PC Gamer reported, Bell revealed that Wordle has massively increased the number of people subscribing to NYT games. She also reiterated NYT's philosophy of "do no harm" regarding Wordle; its owners are not seeking to break the things that have made it so popular.
Adding new answers into the mix won't necessarily do that; after all, most players don't have a clue which words are in the solutions list, and won't particularly care. Even hardcore Wordle geeks like myself would prefer to play it blind and to win (or lose) fairly.
Click to reveal spoiler
But the fact that the new word is a difficult one is worthy of note. (Yes, it's time for another spoiler, so skip past this if you haven't played today).
GUANO is definitely not an easy answer to find: the website Word and Phrase Info states that it's only the 32,382nd most common word in the English language. Yesterday's UNTIE, in contrast, was 14,673rd - and Saturday's VOTER was just 1,456th. Of course, the obscurity of a word is only one of the factors that goes into how hard a given Wordle is, but it's not irrelevant.
That raises the question of why the NYT added it. The only conclusion I can draw is that it was specifically to make the day's puzzle harder. We've been on a run of pretty simple answers lately, a fact I'm confident about because the NYT's WordleBot - an AI designed to help you improve your game - reports the daily average among all those who play it. Of the previous 20 solutions before today, only five had an average score of more than 4/6, commonly seen as par for Wordle.
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1 day ago · Find out what today's Wordle hint and answer is for game #1,232, November 2 and get some hints for it. You might need them! Plus see the solutions to previous games.
Feb 15, 2022 · Wordle’s acquisition by The New York Times has already stirred up controversy, from broken streaks to accusations the game has become harder. But here’s a big change the NYT isn’t...
Mar 29, 2023 · At GDC 2023, executive producer Zoe Bell explained how the viral phenomenon Wordle has settled in after being acquired by The New York Times.
Feb 3, 2022 · Wordle: how a simple game of letters became part of the New York Times’ business plan. Published: February 3, 2022 9:56am EST. In just a few months, a simple five-letter puzzle has earned its...
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