Durban - There’s a new game in town, and I’m hooked. Not surprising, I suppose, considering that words are my bread and butter.
Wordle is a simple game where you have six chances to guess a random five-letter word.
With each entry, the game lets you know by colour code how many letters you have in their correct spots, how many are correct but in the wrong spot, and how many don’t appear in the target word at all.
Pretty similar to Mastermind, if you've played that, but with words.
The trick is to come up with a good first word that contains common vowels and consonants, which will hopefully give you a good platform to start from.
So immersive is the game ‒ and the search for the best starting word ‒ that two gents have done a scientific study of the most commonly used letters and come up with a few suggestions (see the story on page 5 today).
At the time of writing I have yet to try their suggestions (“arose”, “soare” and “samey”), so I can't vouch for their effectiveness, but they sound like good bets.
My own first word tend to be similar, something with a few vowels and includes “r” and “s”. So think “rates” or “stare”.
I’m actually afraid to tackle today’s word ‒ my kids each got it in two tries, and it just wouldn’t do for the resident wordsmith to be beaten.
Competition in this household tends to be fierce!
The Independent on Saturday
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