Wordle has been an obsession for tons of avid puzzlers for years now, but the beloved puzzle game is set to make the jump to our TV screens in the near future!

On May 11, we learned that NBC had greenlit a new primetime game show based on the New York Times puzzle that has "become a daily ritual for millions of players around the world" (as the NYT puts it).

The series is being produced by Universal Television Alternative Studio in partnership with Jimmy Fallon's Electric Hot Dog — with Fallon onboard as an executive producer — and the New York Times, and will see teams of players cracking five-letter puzzles in pursuit of a cash prize.

Excited? Here's everything we know about the "Wordle" game show right now, including who's hosting, and a brief rundown of how the show's been adapted for TV.

Do we have a 'Wordle' TV show release date yet?

Right now, we don't have a release date for the Wordle TV show, though NBC has said that production on the show is set to begin later this year and that the show is "slated to premiere in 2027."

As soon as we know more, we'll be sure to share it here.

Who's going to host the 'Wordle' game show?

"TODAY" show co-anchor Savannah Guthrie has been confirmed as the host of the "Wordle" TV show. Executive producer Jimmy Fallon confirmed the news on the show on Monday, May 11; you can see that announcement below:

In a statement shared by NBC, Fallon said he was "very honored" to be working with Savannah Guthrie.

"Savannah has that rare combination of intelligence, charm and warmth that makes everyone feel instantly welcome. And she obviously knows how to host a show. I am SUPER PROUD and HAPPY, and I think we developed a SOLID GAMER for PRIME-time," he added.

How does the 'Wordle' game show work?

NBC has shared a brief explanation of how the new show will work, billing it as "a supersized battle of smarts, speed and fun" that will have players working to solve five-letter word puzzles, like the original game.

It reads: "The new format challenges players to solve five-letter word puzzles in a supersized battle of smarts, speed and fun. It builds on the way the puzzle community engages with Wordle every day — solving together, sharing wins, debating strategies and cheering one another on. Now, that style of play comes to life as the most-obsessed and competitive players will team up in squads and go head-to-head in the 'Wordle' arena, playing for an incredible cash prize."

Can I sign up for the 'Wordle' TV show?

Yes, if your brain's packed full of Wordle knowledge, like the best Wordle start words or the most common Wordle letters, casting is open now (as of the May 11 announcement).

The casting site says it's asking for teams of three players to apply. Per the casting site, selected teams will be heading to Europe to play the game over a 1-2 week period from July 20 to August 1 (dates subject to change).

The Manchester Evening News says the show will be filmed in the English city.

Think you've got what it takes? Head over to wordle.castingcrane.com for more details.

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Wordle is not letting up with players this week. The daily puzzle game has served up a vicious one-two punch with another hard answer after yesterday's doozy.

If you haven't checked it yet, you're likely going to want today's Wordle hint to keep your streak intact this week.

Yesterday's answer — which was the uncommon "dowdy" — took the average player 4.4 moves in easy mode, or 4.3 if playing by hard rules. But according to the NYT's WordleBot, May 15's answer is even trickier. The average player will complete Wordle #1,790 in 5.2 moves in easy mode, or 5.1 if playing by hard rules. Talk about a one-two punch!

Just like yesterday, I'm going to dive into why it's a tough answer below, and I'll also reveal the actual answer below the spoiler warning. If you haven't played yet, good luck!

What makes today's Wordle answer difficult?

Ok, so the first reason that today's Wordle answer is so difficult is not that the letters themselves are hard to guess — it's because there are a lot of words following the same structure. In fact, three of the most common Wordle letters are contained in today's answer and there are no repeated characters.

Sounds easy, right? But the problem is that there are a lot of words that contain these letters in this particular order. Our resident Wordle expert got the correct order on his third attempt, and there were 78 possibilities left to guess.

The sheer density of word options is the biggest hurdle to overcome today. Even if you aced the first, second, fourth, and fifth letters early, you will still have found yourself guessing through a long list of possibilities.

Next, although the answer contains three of the most common Wordle letters, there are a couple of consonants locked in that are much less common. In fact, one of them is among the rarest letters used in the English language.

Ironically, the actual answer to today's puzzle is another way of saying to hesitate or be undecided. Which feels particularly on-the-nose after yesterday's difficult answer.

Ready to find out what it is? Scroll past the spoiler alert below to see.

May 14's Wordle answer

So, what's the answer to today's challenging Wordle #1,789?

Ok, the answer to today's Wordle is "Waver".

As I said, it's not an uncommon word in the same way as "dowdy" was yesterday, but how many words do you know that include WA_ER? Water, wafer, wager — those are just the first that come to mind.

It's unlikely the consonant "v" is the first on your list, and NYT testers reportedly rated today's answer as "highly challenging," largely because that middle "v" is a "low-probability" slot for most standard starting strategies.

Social media reacts

As you'd expect, a number of players took to social media after Wordle served up yet another difficult puzzle this week.

How did you do? Did today's Wordle end your streak or did you guess it in time? Let us know in the comments below.

And if today's answer has ended your love affair with Wordle, check out our own Tom's Guide games to get your fix there instead.

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If you're struggling with today's Wordle, then you're probably not alone.

We track the daily word game from the New York Times every morning, and according to our own Wordle expert, the answer for May 13 is one of the trickier ones we've had recently.

The average player will complete Wordle #1,780 in 4.4 moves in easy mode, or 4.3 if playing by hard rules, according to the NYT's WordleBot analysis. So it's not boss-level hard, but it's certainly enough to need a Wordle hint or two.

Since we've been covering Wordle for a long time, you may be interested to know that puzzle #454 back in September 2022 arrived with a score of 6.3.

We'll dive into why it's a tough Wordle today below (which may help if you haven't solved it yet), and then we'll reveal the answer below beneath the spoiler warning.

What makes today's Wordle answer difficult?

There are two parts to today's answer that make it particularly difficult to guess, and that's because there's a repeated letter — one of the most reliable streak killers in Wordle. Most players naturally prioritize testing five unique letters in their first few guesses to maximize information.

To make things even more difficult, one character in today's answer ranks among the ten most common Wordle letters.

Finally, the actual word itself is probably not one that many of us use on a day-to-day basis. All of which adds up to a Wordle answer that's more difficult than usual to solve.

If you haven't figured it out yet, then you can find the answer below beneath the spoiler warning.

May 13's Wordle answer

So, what's the answer to today's challenging Wordle #1,789?

It's "dowdy".

If you've not come across this word before, I wouldn't blame you. It's a descriptive adjective that means "unfashionable," "drab," or "frumpy."

And while you might recognise it after the fact, it does not come to mind over more common-sounding words like "rowdy" or "howdy".

Social media reacts

As you'd expect, plenty of players have taken to social media to comment on today's answer breaking their streaks.

How did you do? Did today's Wordle end your streak or did you guess it in time? Let us know in the comments below.

And if today's answer has ended your love affair with Wordle, check out our own Tom's Guide games to get your fix there instead.

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If you're scratching your head trying to solve today's Wordle, you're not the only one. The puzzle for May 10, 2026, puzzle #1,786, is one of the more difficult Wordles that The New York Times has served up so far this year.

The New York Times' Wordlebot says that today's puzzle has an average of 4.6 guesses, which is definitely on the higher end.

What makes today's Wordle so difficult? We're not going to be giving the answer away just yet (check out our Wordle hints for that or scroll down below the spoiler warning), but the biggest reason is that a single letter appears twice. It's a familiar word, but that double letter definitely tripped me (and plenty of other Wordle players) up.

Here's one hint to help you solve today's difficult puzzle — the twice-repeated letter is a vowel. While the repeated letter is very common, its placement is not, with one of the vowels showing up at the end of the word. That makes it unlikely that many will figure it out within the allotted number of guesses.

According to the Wordlebot, just 4% of players figured it out on the second turn; 8% solved it in three tries, 37% solved it in four, 75.7% by turn five, and 94.7 got the correct answer in six, which leaves a little over 5% who could not solve the puzzle.

Today's puzzle still pales In comparison to the hardest Wordles of 2025; last year, TIZZY received a 5.4 rating by the WordleBot, and EAGER was an incredible 6.0.

Today's Wordle answer

So, what is today's Wordle answer for game #1,786? Drumroll please...

Without further delay, check out the answer for May 10's Wordle — it's PARKA.

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If you're having trouble solving today's Wordle, you're not alone. The puzzle for April 27, 2026, puzzle #1,773, is one of the more difficult Wordles to come along in quite a while.

The New York Times' Wordlebot says that today's puzzle has an average of 4.4 guesses, which is high.

What makes today's Wordle so hard? We're not going to be giving the answer away just yet (check out our Wordle hints for that or scroll down below the spoiler warning), but the biggest reason is that a single letter is repeated three times, which has occurred less than 10 times in the entire history of the game.

Ok, here's one hint to help you solve the difficult puzzle — the thrice-repeated letter is a vowel. And, it's not the first time that it's happened for this particular letter.

While the repeated letter is very common, its triple occurrence makes it unlikely that many will figure it out within the allotted number of guesses.

According to the Wordlebot, just 1.9% of players figured it out on the second turn; 12.3% solved it in three tries, 39.2% solved it in four, 69.9% by turn five, and 89.6 got the correct answer in six, which leaves a little over 10% who could not solve the puzzle.

In comparison to the hardest Wordles of 2025, today's shouldn't be overly difficult, as the NYT average is 4.4 guesses; last year, TIZZY received a 5.4 rating by the WordleBot, and EAGER was an incredible 6.0.

Today's Wordle answer

So, what is today's Wordle answer for game #1,773?

Without further delay, check out the answer for April 27's Wordle — it's EERIE.

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Will Parsword replace Wordle was the question I started out with. The answer? No.

But that's okay, it's not meant to.

With that out of the way, what is Parseword and what is creator Josh Wardle doing with his new tricky word game?

Wordle is a simple word game on the face of it. Type a word and get letter clues to determine what the word of the day actually is, and you only have six attempts. It was a viral hit that took the internet by storm in 2021 before eventually being sold to the New York Times and folded into the Grey Lady's growing shelf of games.

As Wardle told the New Yorker following the massive success of his hit, "I’m not sure humans are built to handle going viral."

What is Parseword?

Parseword is both trickier to solve than Wordle but also a teaching tool.

The game is an attempt to make cryptic crosswords easier to understand while teaching you how to solve the types of clues you might find in a cryptic.

The clue is the puzzle. As Wardle notes, it removes some of the ambiguity of the American "concise" crossword. Historically, cryptics are more popular in the United Kingdom than in the United States. Here's an example from The Guardian if you're curious.

"Cryptics are beautiful and rich puzzles but are notoriously hard to learn," the game's about page reads. "We wanted to make a game that captures the joy of solving cryptics while making them more accessible to everyone."

Parseword eases the difficulty with helpful videos, tutorials, starter puzzles and hints to help you understand the daily puzzle. Where it differs from the crossword is that each daily puzzle is a single "simile sentence" to solve.

We have a guide on how to play Parseword, and you'll find that the game's site is quite deft at teaching or hinting at how to solve the puzzle.

Will Parseword join my daily puzzle grind?

I am a daily puzzler. From the NYT hub, I solve Strands, Wordle, Connections, and the Crossword. I also solve the daily Pips for this site, though it's not a personal favorite. I've recently been enjoying Clues by Sam for its logic puzzles.

After a week of Parseword, I have to admit, the game may not be for me.

My personal tastes lean toward trivia and clued logic puzzles, which is why Connections and the Crossword are particularly appealing to my solving tastes.

In a way, Parseword or cryptics are a logic puzzle, but I found the description of Parseword as an equation to be solved more illuminating for my aversion. Perhaps a week isn't long enough, but I had a hard time with the overall concept, even with all of the helpful hints.

There's a lot to take in from the game. There are at least nine keywords, several of which can operate in more than one manner. Plus, there is a cleverness to looking at the sentence that, admittedly, I probably lack, where sometimes seeing the word within the word escapes my thought processes.

I think when it comes to puzzles, there is joy in the journey, but also in the solving. As an example, yesterday's (March 19) daily puzzle: Bee audibly deflated: helium-filled craft was one I was able to breeze through without using the included hints.

I found some enjoyment in finally grasping the homophone and replacement moves I needed to make, but the solve still left me... unfulfilled.

If that kind of thinking excites your puzzle brain, you should give Parseword a try. However, if you're like me and find that you don't approach puzzles this way, there are other games to play.

Wardle has described Parseword as a "gradual on-ramp" to understanding cryptics. If the game catches you, I agree, it seems like a useful way to warm your brain up to eventually diving into the much trickier world of full cryptic crosswords.

Alternatives to try

Of course, the New York Times has its Games app with some quite popular daily puzzles.

There's also the Hearst-owned Puzzmo which has a bevy of games that are wildly different from the NYT offerings. Circuits and Really Bad Chess are two I'd recommend alongside their versions of the Crossword. But everyone have games these days including LinkedIn of all places.

While you're here, did you know that we have our own Tom's Guide games?

Our games include everything from crosswords and word searches to trivia and guessing numbers. Give it a try and let us know what you might be interested in playing. We're always interested in feedback so let us know your views in the comments below.

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We're huge puzzling fans here at Tom's Guide, with today's Wordle answer hints and today's NYT Connections hints and answers permanently in our bookmarks. We know you enjoy a good game too – visits to our Wordle page are in the millions every single month.

That's why we've unveiled out very own Tom's Guide games, which currently contain a collection of multiple choice quizzes, lystery quizzes (where we challenge you to name all items in a set), crosswords and word searches, with guess the number and jigsaw puzzles coming very soon. So soon, in fact, that we have a Guess the number quiz right here ⬇️.

Following on from last year's daily Guess the Year game (which you can still go back and play), the new weekly guess the number games will be grouped around a topical theme and will offer up tantalising clues to help you guess the number we have in mind.

You get two minutes per question, and six attempts — with correct digits turning green to help you bit by bit. For today's first game we've kept it Oscars-themed, and the numbers are just four digits or less. We'll keep an eye on the leaderboards to gauge whether to increase the complexity.

I should also point out that on our games page, you can click on the tags beneath each game to find other games on that topic. It's a fledgling collection, so keep checking back each day to see what's new, as the archive grows.

The best way to stay up-to-date on all of our new games, access exclusive rewards, join in the conversations on-site and more, is to become a Tom's Guide member. It doesn't cost you a penny, and unlocks these features plus article recommendations and the ability to unlock badges by engaging with the site — making reading your favorite website a game in itself!

We hope you enjoy the games — let us know what you think in the comments below. Too hard? Too easy? Want a game themed around robot vacuums? Just say — I promise to consider all reasonable suggestions.

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Wordle isn't giving players an easy ride for Friday the 13th with game #1,728, the unluckiest day of the year. If you're a regular player of NYT's beloved daily word game, you might want to check out today's overall Wordle hint before starting.

WordleBot says it'll take an average of 4.8 guesses in normal mode and 4.7 in hard mode. That's quite high (the average is 4.1, according to Engaging Data).

In the end, the March 13th Wordle #1,728 answer is a tough one with the potential to end many streaks. Even if you follow the best Wordle starting words, you might still find yourself feeling a little stumped by the puzzle today. Maybe the Wordle people thought ending streaks on Friday the 13th would be funny.

If you want to know the answer, scroll a little further down below the bold text, where I'll put it. Sure, you can keep your streak alive by just reading the answer, but where's the fun in that?

Looking back at the hardest Wordles of 2025, this one doesn't seem so bad, as TIZZY received a 5.4 rating by the WordleBot. But that's only number 10 on the list! Number one was EAGER, with an incredible 6.0.

Again, today's puzzle is hard, with the average player completing it in 4.8 moves in easy mode or 4.7 in hard mode. Will it make the list as one of the hardest Wordles in 2026? Time will tell, but considering number 10's 5.4 last year, we might just be scratching the surface for hard Wordle puzzles.

So, what makes today's answer so difficult? To discuss it, we'll need to reveal the answer — stop reading now if you haven't played Wordle yet and don't want it spoiled...

Spoiler alert: Today's answer below

I'm going to assume you heeded the warning ahead and know that today's puzzle's answer is "EATEN."

You know, like how this puzzle has eaten lots of Wordle players' beloved streaks. Or how my pride was eaten by having to use six guesses to get it right. Not the most common word and not an easy one to guess by any means.

Dictionary.com defines it as: "a past participle of eat." While not the most exciting definition, it is most definitely an exciting word for players with its triple vowel structure and "e" starting letter.

How the Tom's Guide team fared

I talked to some members of the Tom's Guide team who take part in the daily Wordle ritual, and not everyone was thrilled with game #1,728. This is a spoiler-free section if you skipped over the answer to read our thoughts, you have nothing to worry about.

Erin Bashford, Senior Writer, Reviews, said, "I just did it and didn't think it was hard! Maybe it's a British/American thing? Do you guys mostly use the other past tense version of that verb?" As an American, that is absolutely true for me. I very rarely use this particular word.

Talking to Streaming Managing Editor Kelly Woo, I received a "triumph" emoji. She also mentioned that one of her friends got it in two, which is both shocking and impressive.

Tom's Guide U.S. Editor-in-Chief Mike Prospero spoke to his wife, a dedicated Wordle player, who said, "I got 3 letters in my first guess, and I still had to use all of my turns."

Let us know in the comments how many turns it took you to get today's answer!

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When Josh Wardle created and released Wordle in 2021, it quickly took the world by storm. Since selling the game to the New York Times, Wardle has been pretty quiet on the gaming front.

He's back with a new, trickier word game — Parseword. Built with collaborators, Parseword attempts to make cryptic crosswords easier to...parse.

"Cryptics are beautiful and rich puzzles but are notoriously hard to learn," the game's about page reads. "We wanted to make a game that captures the joy of solving cryptics while making them more accessible to everyone."

I'm not familiar with cryptic crosswords, but according to the Parseword site, the puzzles remove the ambiguity of clues in a normal crossword with a clue that "validates itself." The clue itself is the puzzle.

Parseword eases the difficulty of cryptic crosswords with tutorials, starter puzzles, and helpful videos. If you find yourself stuck, there is a hint button to give you some direction.

The game launches at an interesting time as the New York Times continues to expand its offerings from the crossword and Wordle to Strands, Connections and Pips.

Parseword may not take the world by storm as Wordle did, but it's not meant to either. “Releasing Parseword is happening more on my own terms, instead of happening to me,” Wardle told the New Yorker.

How to play

As mentioned, the Parseword site is very beginner-friendly. The tutorial is quite generous, and there are videos with explanations and starter puzzles that teach you different ways to solve.

There are a number of different keywords to understand, from "replacements" to "containers."

The game itself, like Wordle, is a daily puzzle. It has three different game modes: learn mode, play and challenge.

Learn mode provides definitions for words and keyword suggestions that give a hint on how to solve the puzzle. There's also the hint button. Play mode hides the definition and features no starting hints. Experienced solvers can try challenge mode, where the solution length and indicator information are hidden.

The puzzle will provide you with a series of words like curse, blade, catching and clothes from today's (March 10) puzzle. Essentially, you are trying to create similes.

In today's example Curse is the word you want to match. You can replace words like blade with another say 'sword' and clothes with 'wear'. You can also combine words into a "container".

So Sword catching Wear turns into Swear word, which is analogous to a curse.

It may not be intuitive, it wasn't for me, but you need some cleverness and learning the keywords of how you can combine and replace words to reach the end result.

Fortunately, the entire project is designed to help you learn over time and get better at the game as it introduces its concepts and terminology.

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Wordle, the massively popular daily word game owned by The New York Times, is going through a massive change. Instead of using a new word every day (how are they still coming up with five-letter words after all this time?), previously used words are now back in play.

The New York Times put out a brief statement at the top of its Gameplay email newsletter yesterday, revealing the change.

"Hey, Wordlers! We have some exciting news to share," the statement said. "Starting on Monday, we will begin adding previously run words back into play. There are still many first-time answers to debut, but also more chances for Wordle in ones and those magical, serendipitous moments when Wordle overlaps with real life. Happy solving!"

It's important to note that part that says "There are still many first-time answers to debut," as players who've been with Wordle since day one will still have the excitement of seeing new words and expanding their vocabulary.

Make sure to read out daily Wordle tips and answer if you ever get stuck on a puzzle.

Outlook from Wordle players

The Times is doing this out of practicality. When it acquired Wordle a few years back, it had a list of 2,309 approved five-letter words. At the rate it's going, Wordle was going to run out of words in about two years, so if it wanted to keep the game going, it was going to have to start repeating words at some point. By starting this now, it will be able to mix repeated words in more randomly, rather than waiting to the very end.

I play Wordle pretty much every day, and I'm happy with this change. I think more variety in word options is a good thing, as there really are only so many five-letter words to go around. It gives NYT the chance to tie words into cultural events again and make super-hard words when the company feels like twisting our brains a bit.

My girlfriend is a more dedicated Wordle player than me, so I asked for her thoughts on the change. "I think it's a guessing game regardless, so it's not going to make me play any differently," said my Wordle-addicted girlfriend. "If anything, I think it'll bring back some nostalgia after I solve the puzzle and remember a previous word."

She also plays a slightly different style than most; she tries to use a different start word every day instead of using the optimal Wordle words. She said it feels like cheating, so opening up even more potential words could lead to some one and two-guess finishes for her than those who use the "correct" words to start.

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My mornings always follow the same routine. I get dressed, make myself a nice cup of coffee, get on the bus to work, and catch up on the goings-on on my phone. That basically means that I do my daily barrage of word and letter games, which helps keep my brain sharp and wakes me up, ensuring that I'm ready for the day ahead.

The first game I always start with is Wordle, New York Times' web-based word game that's taken the world by storm. I, like many others, love playing it every day. Though I have been playing it since 2021, I currently have a 460-day streak, which speaks volumes about my love for it. My family and I always share our scores on our group chat, and when one of us gets it in either the first or second go, we all react with various celebratory emojis.

I also love playing Strands and Connections so yes, I'm a word game connoisseur. Recently, though, another has caught my eye. A month or so ago, my partner introduced me to a letter-swapping game called Waffle, a free web-based game which feels like the lovechild of Wordle and a crossword puzzle — and I am obsessed.

If you enjoy Wordle but need a change, or you just want a Wordle alternative that's actually good, I strongly believe you'll love Waffle as much as I do... and my partner does... and my family does. My point is: you should play it. Let me show you why.

How does it work?

Waffle is easy to get a hang of, and it doesn't take very long to do so either. You know how Wordle presents you with a blank canvas and you can use whatever five-letter combo you fancy? Waffle isn't like that. Instead, you get a crossword-style grid with six five-letter words arranged on a waffle-shaped grid. You must then drag and drop the letters to create an answer. But you must do so within 15 swaps — failure to do so results in all the letters becoming grayed out (and you getting a little heartbreak emoji when you share your score with friends and family).

Remember I said it's like a combination between Wordle and crossword? The letters are color-coded in green (for letters placed in the correct position) and yellow (for letters that can be placed elsewhere in the word), just like Wordle. Each puzzle can be solved in just 10 moves, earning you a perfect score. Sounds easy? Think again.

When I first started playing Waffle, I struggled to get the combinations right, and barely made it through with zero swaps remaining (which didn't get me any stars). I was then determined to try again the next day. Three swaps remaining, three stars for me. It went on like that for a few days until I finally got a perfect five out of five stars, and I was elated.

What I really love about Waffle is just how addicting it is. I've been playing it every day religiously for the past month or so, and I can't get enough of it. Every Monday, you also get a Deluxe Waffle, which is basically a much bigger grid with more swaps. It's something I now look forward to every week. Waffle also feels more high-stakes compared to Wordle — to me, Waffle requires more brainpower compared to Wordle.

Another thing I adore is that you get full access to the Waffle archive, so you can play all the past puzzles — and there are thousands of them! I've always disliked the fact that you need to get an NYT Games subscription if you want to play past Wordles. In an ideal world, we'd all have equal access, but sadly, that's not the case right now.

There are more games, too!

Similar to the NYT Games app which gives you access to Wordle, Strands, Connections, Pips and more, Waffle has a couple of extra games too — although they're all web-based and there's no collective app for them (yet). Stackdown and One Word Search are what I do right after I've done my daily Waffle, and they're just as fun if not more.

Stackdown is simple. Your goal is to clear the Stack of tiles by finding each of the five-letter words, and there is only ever one possible word to find before you move on to the next word. How does this work? Well, you tap on an exposed tile to gain access to the tile(s) under it, and you continue doing so until you've found all the words.

If you're stuck, you can get a hint but know that this impacts your final score and the stars you earn. So the fewer the hints you use, the more stars you get (maximum of five). And Stackdown will praise you for your score too, by saying things like, "Genius! Glorious. You have serious talent." It's very good for the ego.

Then there's One Word Search. Again, you have to find a five-letter word by swiping diagonally, horizontally or vertically. The words can be in reverse too, and there's a total of 10 words to find. One Word Search is perhaps the easiest game of the lot. As soon as you load it up, the timer starts. If you find all the words in a minute or less (something I'm yet to achieve), you're awarded five stars. Two minutes or less gets you four stars, and so on and so forth.

I'm still chasing that five-star score, and I will be a very happy camper when that day finally arrives. For now, I'm going to keep trying to ace Waffle, Stackdown and One Word Search. While I still enjoy Wordle, Strands and Connections, I'd be lying if I said a little part of me didn't prefer Waffle. I feel like the man in the "distracted boyfriend" meme, looking at Waffle while Wordle looks at me in disbelief.

Why don't you give Waffle a go and see if you feel the same way? And once you've played it, let me know what you think of it in the comments below! Happy Waffling.

More from Tom's Guide

• Best Wordle alternatives and Wordle clones
• Today’s Wordle hints and answer
• Best Wordle start words to help you keep your streak

After four years of hanging out in the New York Times Games app, Wordle remains incredibly popular for millions who try to guess the newest five-letter word every morning. One of the appeals of Wordle is the challenge, and seeing how your score compares with everyone else who played that day.

The New York Times' Wordlebot analyzes everyone's scores and the average number of guesses it takes to solve each day's puzzle. According to Wordlebot, these were the 10 most difficult Wordles of 2025.

Spoiler alert: This story will reveal Wordle answers from the past year. If you want to play past Wordle puzzles, you can sign up to access the Wordle Archive from The New York Times. And if you need hints for the current puzzle at any time, be sure to check out today's Wordle hint and answer.

Note: This article only reflects Wordles through December 19. I would also like to thank Engaging Data's archive of Wordle stats for help in compiling this list.

Wordle #1493 - July 21

NYT average: 5.4
Solve rate: 83%

This day's answer was TIZZY, which likely took a while to save because of the double letters and the rarely used letter Z. Double-letter words tend to be quite tricky. Couple that with Z and you've got a dousy.

Tizzy did tie for the 10th spot with two other words: #1475 from July 3, which was Poppy, a rare triple letter word, and #1388 from April 7; Hazel featuring the rare letter Z.

Wordle #1385 - April 4

NYT average: 5.2
Solve rate: 81%

Nearly twenty percent of all Wordle players failed find the word Krill. That included several Tom's Guide staffers. This was one of the hard words we highlighted last year.

Getting the backend '_RILL' is the easy part, but there are so many words like grill, drill and frill that could have worked.

"There were so many to choose from! Brill? No. Grill? No. Frill? You get the picture. So yes, I lost my Wordle streak because of a crustacean. That'll teach me to stick to my strategy," my colleague Millie on the Tom's Guide Homes team said.

Wordle #1370 - March 20

NYT Average: 5.1
Solve rate: 80%

Like #9, the difficulty of #1370 comes down to how many words have the backend '_ASTE'. As you can see from our guess above, that includes WASTE, HASTE, and PASTE, just to name a few examples.

Rhyming words like this are always tricky.

Wordle #1300 - January 9

NYT Average: 5.3
Solve rate: 80%

This answer (WAFER) was difficult to solve because if you found -ER ending or the WA- start, there were so many ways you could go about it. If you just found the vowels, it could take even longer. You could have Water, Wager or Waver before you even got to Wafer.

Wordle #1500 - July 28

NYT Average: 5.3
Solve rate: 79%

This puzzle literally broke our personal solve streak, largely because of the rarely used letter V, and it's a double! As with some of the other tricky Wordles, the repeated letter is what makes it hard. Plus, according to Merriam Webster there are only 11 other words that even feature two Vs like this, and savvy may be the most familiar.

Wordle #1482 - July 10

NYT Average: 5.6
Solve rate: 78%

This answer (JUMPY) is tricky because most of the time, you're avoiding plurals or -y words as you solve. Additionally, like some of the previous tricky words, jumpy has a lot of rhymes that it could be. J is surprisingly rare as well with only 48 'common' words featuring the letter, though the dictionary shows over 300.

Wordle #1576 - October 12

NYT Average: 5.3
Solve rate: 75%

WOUND proved a tricky one as "_OUND" presents a number of alternatives; Bound, Round, Sound and Found were likely guessed by solvers. A quarter of Wordlers didn't even solve this puzzle.

Wordle #1497 - July 25

NYT Average: 5.6
Solve rate: 64%

As we enter the top 3, I wanted to note that July proved to be the hardest month, taking three spots in our top 10, plus two more that tied for the 10th spot.

As for this day's puzzle, what a streak breaker, knocking nearly 40% of solvers out. We were one group that never even came close to G or F in our solve above. If you got stuck with the vowels and ER, there are far too many ways you could go to find the next word.

Wordle #1310 - January 19

NYT Average: 5.7
Solve rate: 64%

The second-hardest Wordle of 2025, ROWER, does feature double letters but also, depending on what letters you gathered first, far too many rhymes or other words that could fill the spot. In our solve, we had robed, roles, and ropey before we got close to rower, largely thanks to nabbing RO and E in our first guess. Still, such an open-ended set of letters broke 36% of all players.

Wordle #1426 - May 15

NYT Average: 6.0
Solve rate: 49%

This puzzle's word, EAGER, is by far the hardest Wordle of the last few years. The hardest word in 2024, CORER, was still solved by over 50% of people. Eager knocked out 51% of the people who played across a sample of 1,780,000 games.

Like Corer, Eager hits you with a two letter Es. Additionally, as you can see in our guesses, which we lost, the position of A and ER could be so many different words. We've seen that combination of letters in other difficult puzzles like Wafer, the seventh hardest puzzle this year.

Even solving for one of the consonants doesn't get you all the way there. "_AGER" could be lager, wager, or pager, for example.

Wordle isn't giving players an easy ride into the holiday season and if you're a regular player you might want to check out today's Wordle hint before starting.

I hate to be the one to break it to you, but December 19's Wordle answer is a doozy that has all the potential to end a lot of streaks. In fact, one of my colleagues (who's been playing for years) called it the hardest Wordle she's ever done.

I'll put the answer itself further down this article beneath a spoiler warning so you can look for yourself if you're all out of guesses.

Our in-house Wordle expert checks his progress on every puzzle through the New York Times' WordleBot. The in-game AI helper analyzes the game after you've played it and does the same for every other player. That gives you an idea of how tough people are finding any given puzzle, and Wordle #1,644 (December 19) is, in a word, brutal. In fact, our expert said he felt like this was one of the toughest answers of 2025.

According to the WordleBot, the average player completes today's puzzle in 4.6 moves in easy mode, or 4.5 if playing by hard rules. That's not a lot of margin for error but it's also not the highest we've ever seen. Puzzle #454, all the way back in September 2022 has a score of 6.3.

So, what makes today's answer so difficult? To discuss it, we're going to need to reveal the answer — so stop reading now if you haven't done it yet and don't want it spoiled...

Spoiler alert: Today's answer below

I'm going to assume you heeded the warning ahead and know that today's puzzle's answer is "myrrh."

That's right, it's a Christmas-themed Wordle today! But what makes it so difficult? It could be the fact that myrrh isn't exactly a word we use on a daily basis. In addition, it doesn't feature any of the five vowels and just one of the ten most common Wordle letters.

While our own Wordle expert got it in three guesses (he eliminated all possible vowels in two guesses), that's not going to be the case for everyone.

If you're not familiar with the Christmas story, myrrh was one of the gifts presented to baby Jesus from the three wise men. It's a sap-like resin produced from the commiphora plant and, like frankincense, was widely used in ancient cultures as both a medicine and a form of incense.

Merriam-Webster defines it as: "a yellowish-brown to reddish-brown aromatic gum resin with a bitter slightly pungent taste obtained from a tree (especially Commiphora myrrha of the family Burseraceae) of eastern Africa and Arabia."

How the Tom's Guide team fared

I polled our regular Wordle players to get a sense of how they found today's puzzle.

"That has to be the hardest Wordle I've done ever, the lack of any vowels really threw me off," said our senior reviews writer Nikita Achanta. "When I'm stuck, my tactic is to just repeat letters and hopefully a lightbulb will go ding in my head. The only reason I knew the answer is because my partner owns an essential oil with this thing in it. At least it saved my 443 day streak."

Phones writer Josh Render had the same strategy: "The only insight is to not be afraid to use words with some letters you already have as a guess just to get some more potential greens and yellows. I only got it by putting down "merry", despite having a word with an "e" as a guess already."

Meanwhile our Homes editor, Millie Fender, picked up today's answer in three guesses: "I figured out in my second guess that the last letter had to be an H, which really narrowed down my options," she said. "But then, because I am a very wise (wo)man, I remembered one five-letter word with a seasonal twist that fit the bill.

"Sometimes being hemmed in with an impossible letter placement can force you to get creative, and I managed to get it in three!"

Erin Bashford, senior reviews writer, explained: "Today's Wordle has a killer combo of zero vowels and a double consonant. After my second guess, I knew there were no vowels, so I presumed the vowel sound would be replaced with a Y.

"Unfortunately, the only word that came to mind was the 6-letter "RHTHYM". I jiggled around rhythm's letters and eventually came up with today's correct answer on guess 4."

Meanwhile, our senior fitness writer Nick Harris-Fry also managed to guess the answer: "Having ruled out all the vowels after three rounds, and only guessed two correct letters in the wrong place, I had to think long and hard.

"The answer eventually came like a Christmas gift, and I felt like a very wise man."

How did you get on with today's Wordle answer? Did you keep your streak? Let us know in the comments below.

More from Tom's Guide

• I analyzed every Wordle answer to look for patterns — here's what I found
• This Wordle trick kept my streak going — and you'll probably hate it
• Best Wordle start words to help you keep your streak

Wordle players might need a Wordle hint today, because November 18's puzzle is looking like a tricky customer. Here at Tom's Guide, we've been covering Wordle for years, so we know a word comes along every once in a while that could potentially end a streak or two.

If you're really struggling, you can find out today's Wordle answer here (I'll put it further down this article underneath a spoiler warning too) if you really need to know.

Our in-house Wordle expert checks his progress on every puzzle through the New York Times' WordleBot. The in-game AI helper analyzes the game after you've played it and does the same for every other player. That gives you an idea of how tough people are finding the puzzle, and Wordle #1,613 (November 18) is a doozy.

According to the 'bot, the average player completes today's puzzle in 3.6 moves in easy mode, or 3.5 if playing by hard rules. That's not as hard as we've seen in recent times, but enough to give you pause.

One of the toughest Wordle puzzles was #454 all the way back in September 2022 — that one had a score of 6.3. Back on October 24, we had another tough puzzle that WordleBot scored at 4.1 moves on easy mode, or 4.2 on hard mode. If you're new to Wordle, you get six guesses to figure out the daily word.

So, what makes today's answer so difficult? To discuss it, we're going to need to reveal the answer — so stop reading now if you haven't done it yet and don't want it spoiled...

Spoiler alert: Today's answer below

I'm going to assume you heeded the warning ahead and know that today's puzzle's answer is "Opine."

In the case of our own resident Wordle writer, today's answer wasn't too hard because his start word is "Orate" containing all five of the most common Wordle letters. If you have a similar starting word, like "Olive", you may not have found this one so hard.

With "O" and "E" both accounted for at the beginning and end of the word, there were only eight possible answers left, according to WordleBot. If you started with "Plant" as your Wordle start word, you'd be in an even better position.

I discussed today's puzzle with two of my colleagues, Erin and Josh, both of whom didn't lose their streak but found today's puzzle tough.

"Today was quite tricky because of the triple-vowel situation, but I don't think that was the only reason," Erin said. "I feel like Wordle tends to use nouns more regularly than verbs, so when the answer is a verb, it trips people up subconsciously. Perhaps we should all look out for verbs now."

Josh, meanwhile, said that he found the answer in four attempts. "I found it easy to complete the puzzle by using my constant starter: Plate. That gave me a good basis to build on in subsequent words as I knew that at least one letter was P."

"However, I had never heard the word in question before," he added.

Meanwhile, our Global Editor in Chief Mark Spoonauer, confirms he got the word in five — just protecting his streak.

"I can say this is one of the few times where I've gotten all 5 letters and am still having trouble figuring out the answer," he said.

Part of the difficulty, as Josh pointed out, is that opine isn't a verb many of us would use in day-to-day speech. The definition, according to Merriam-Webster, is "to express opinions." It's derived from Latin and first entered usage back in the 15th century.

So, utilizing vowels will serve you well with today's puzzle, but despite that, it's posing a tough challenge to those of us unaccustomed to vocal pontificating.

Did you find it tough? Did you lose your streak? Let us know in the comments below.

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• I analyzed every Wordle answer to look for patterns — here's what I found
• This Wordle trick kept my streak going — and you'll probably hate it
• Best Wordle start words to help you keep your streak

Are your friends and family consistently being smug about how easy they’ve found Wordle today? Well, now have a chance to teach them a lesson by creating your very own Wordle puzzle. While making it as easy, or difficult, as you like.

The New York Times announced the addition in a recent update, allowing subscribers to quickly create and share their own Wordle puzzles.

There are a few caveats to make note of: firstly, you have to be a subscriber — although the app is offering a 75% discount at the moment — and the word you chose has to be a part of Wordle's dictionary. As such, you can’t send Grandma a Wordle quiz with a swear word in it. But you can give her a Wordle hint if she needs to sharpen up a bit.

With that aside, creating the puzzle couldn't be simpler, and you can do it in both the app and browser.

How to create your own Wordle puzzle

How to lose friends and alienate people

Now that you have decided to create a new puzzle, it’s time to think about how to make it challenging. Unlike normal Wordle, you can create a puzzle of up to seven letters, which gives you a fair few more options. The first thing to do is to check our Wordle of the day tips piece, which includes a breakdown of useful tips for solving the puzzle.

These include how many vowels are in the word, if there are repeated characters and if it contains any of the five most common Wordle letters.

Regarding the latter, if you break down many of the most recent words used by the New York Times, you’ll notice that a majority contain either E, T, A, O I. Meanwhile, as you would expect, letters like Z, Q, J, X and K were much less common.

So, if you want a word that will really throw people off, try Zombify. This is the one I chose for the puzzle that I sent to my Mom, who is a consummate Wordle professional. Long story short, I might not be invited to Christmas.

Another tip we offer is to be on the lookout for vowels or repeated words in your guesses. While it can be tricky to find words with no vowels, I tested both Rhythm and Spryly, and both were accepted.

Repeated words are a bit trickier, as they're a bit of a double-edged sword. On one hand, Wordle doesn't inform users that they exist when making guesses. However, they usually follow a formula that's easy to spot, which can make them easier to guess.

At the end of the day, it’s about having fun, but it’s also about teaching your friend with an English major that they can always learn something new. Let us know in the comments what words you have used and any interesting tips and tricks you’ve found to help trip up your friends.

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In the daily word game space, there's today's Wordle and then there's everyone else competing for second place (including other NYT games like Connections).

A new game wants to get a piece of the Wordle action, and it's from The New Yorker. The game, called Shuffalo, sees you trying to make progressively longer words each round until you reach the maximum. It's challenging and fun, but it has a tall task ahead if it intends to dethrone Wordle as the daily word king.

What is Shuffalo?

If you're looking to expand your daily roundup of games, you might want to give Shuffalo a go. It doesn't cost anything to try it, so it falls squarely in the "why not" category.

As far as playing the game goes, it's simple enough, though a little more complicated than simply guessing random five-letter words like Wordle.

You start with a wheel with four letters on it. From there, you find a four-letter word. Once you succeed, either by getting it right or using hints, you then receive one more letter and must find a five-letter word. This continues through eight-letter words (and a bonus word of nine letters).

Once completed, you receive a score page with a rating (I'm a baby Shuffalo), completion time (8:38 for me), and the number of hints used (11 in my first attempt). It also features a "Share your results" button, a crucial component of Wordle's success.

Like Wordle, clicking the share button copies a string with the game's name, your time, and the results (yellow indicates a successful guess, and gray indicates a hint used). Here's what the results look like:

Shuffalo, 8m 38s

🟡🟡🟡🟡

🟡🟡🟡🟡🟡

🟡🟡🟡🟡🟡🟡

🔘🟡🔘🔘🔘🟡🟡

🔘🔘🔘🔘🔘🔘🔘🟡

🔘🔘🔘🔘🤩🔘🤩🤩🤩

There's no telling if this will catch on anywhere near the level of Worldle, or if you'll need a Wordle hint equivalent to stay on track, but it has all of the right pieces in place.

It doesn't take long to get in and play the game, and it's shareable. From there, it just comes down to whether players latch onto it.

More from Tom's Guide

• Today’s Wordle hints and answer: November 3, 2025, solution #1,598
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If you're a Wordle player, then you may want to brace yourself for today's puzzle because solving it will be an arduous task.

Every so often, a word comes along that tests players and, more often than not, can end up breaking a lot of people's streaks. Today could be one of those days.

Here on Tom's Guide, we run our daily Wordle hint and answers page, which you can check out for some helpful guidance (and a fun new Guess the Number game that'll test your important tech date knowledge).

If you're really struggling, I'll give you the answer here too — but I'll put it further down the article underneath a spoiler warning so you don't accidentally read it if you're still figuring it out.

Our in-house Wordle expert checks his progress on every puzzle through the New York Times' WordleBot. The in-game AI helper analyzes the game after you've played it and does the same for every other player. That gives you an idea of how tough people are finding the puzzle, and Wordle #1,588 (October 24) is a doozy.

According to the 'bot, the average player completes today's puzzle in 4.1 moves on easy mode, or 4.2 on hard mode. If you're new to Wordle, you get six guesses to figure out the daily word. One of the toughest Wordle puzzles was #454 all the way back in September 2022 — that one had a score of 6.3.

I took a quick poll of our regular Wordle players here at Tom's Guide (who hadn't yet looked at our Wordle hint page) and the average was five guesses (it took me six). Sure, it wasn't enough to break the streaks, but it was definitely a little close for comfort.

So, what makes today's answer so difficult? To discuss it, we're going to need to reveal the answer — so stop reading now if you haven't done it yet and don't want it spoiled...

Spoiler alert: Today's answer below

I'm going to assume you heeded the warning ahead and know that today's puzzle's answer is "Tuber."

Shockingly, the answer isn't difficult because of a repeated letter, as was the case the last time one of these backbreaking Wordle puzzles hit the scene (the answer was llama). In this one, it's just a word that a lot of people (myself included) are probably unfamiliar with.

If you're curious, the definition of Tuber, according to Google, is: "A much thickened underground part of a stem or rhizome, e.g., in the potato, serving as a food reserve and bearing buds from which new plants arise."

It starts with a T, which will give many Wordle players a strong start if they use some of the best Wordle start words. However, it veers off into a bunch of uncommon letters from there. There's also an E and an R, which fall right into the R, S, T, L, N, E sweet spot.

But despite that, this is still regarded as a tough challenge. Even if you have the letters (the U and B aren't as easy to come by) you need to either blindly stumble on the word or actually know what it means, which is probably not very common.

How did the Tom's Guide team find today's Wordle?

We've got a few seasoned players on the Tom's Guide team, so I asked for their thoughts on today's puzzle. Here's what some members of the team thought (they're really good at Wordle, apparently):

Millie Fender, Managing Editor, Homes: "I got today's Wordle in four guesses, but if REBUT hadn't been my third guess, it might've taken me a lot longer. Apparently, a tuber is the 'much thickened underground part of a stem or rhizome' — but I got there through deduction, as opposed to an in-depth knowledge of potato biology."

Matthew Murray, Head of Testing: "I have to say, I didn’t find it that much harder than most other Wordles. I guess it depends on how common you consider that word. Once I got the beginning and ending letters, figuring out the middle one was easy. But, again, as a potato lover, maybe I had it easier than other people might."

Tom Prichard, Phones Editor: "I rarely have patience for Wordle, and if I can't come close within the first few tries, I tend to just give up and deliberately fail just to figure out the answer. Today was not one of those days.

It was a tricky word, but once the letters started falling into place, I found the challenge to be quite refreshing. For once, I was reveling in the challenge, rather than getting annoyed — and when I finally got confirmation there was a T in there, it all fell into place. It took me all 6 attempts, but that's still a win."

Erin Bashford, Staff Writer, Reviews: "I got Wordle in five today — embarrassing. As soon as I played LONER for my second guess, I thought, "Could it be TUBER?". I then tried to outsmart the game by guessing the word I thought Wordle would want me to choose — DETER — before going with my gut and playing TUBER. Which, naturally, was the correct answer. So the lesson here is: Trust your gut."

Social media reacts

As you'd expect, plenty of players have taken to social media to comment on today's answer. On Twitter, #Wordle1588 began trending as people shared how they'd fared with the puzzle.

Meanwhile, this person seems to have lucked into the right anwer:

More from Tom's Guide

• I analyzed every Wordle answer to look for patterns — here's what I found
• This Wordle trick kept my streak going — and you'll probably hate it
• Best Wordle start words to help you keep your streak

The New York Times has added another puzzle to its growing collection of daily games. Pips is a domino-based logic puzzle that challenges players to fill a board while meeting specific regional conditions, combining spatial reasoning with mathematical constraints.

Unlike Wordle or Connections, Pips requires understanding domino mechanics and regional rules simultaneously. The game presents varying difficulty levels and uses color-coded regions with different mathematical requirements that must be satisfied to complete each puzzle.

The objective is straightforward: place all available dominoes on the board while ensuring each colored region meets its specified condition. Success requires both logical thinking and strategic domino placement.

Here's how to start playing Pips and understand its core mechanics.

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• How to play NYT Connections
• I asked ChatGPT to solve today's super difficult Wordle
• I used AI to make my own Wordle-style games — here's how you can too

If you're a Wordle player then you may want to brace yourself for today's puzzle.

Every so often, a word comes along that tests players and, more often than not, can end up breaking a lot of people's streaks. Today could be one of those days.

Here on Tom's Guide we run a daily Wordle hint page, which you can check out for some helpful hints. If you're really struggling, I'll give you the answer here too — but I'll put it further down the article underneath a spoiler warning.

Our in-house Wordle expert checks his progress on every puzzle through the New York Times' WordleBot. The in-game AI helper analyzes the game after you've played it and does the same for every other player. That gives you an idea of how tough people are finding the puzzle and Wordle #1,523 (August 20) is a doozy.

According to the 'bot, the average player completes today's puzzle in 4.5 moves in easy mode, or 4.4 if playing by hard rules. If you're new to Wordle, you get six guesses to figure out the daily word. One of the toughest Wordle puzzles was #454 all the way back in September 2022 — that one had a score of 6.3.

I took a quick poll of our regular Wordle players here at Tom's Guide and the general average was most people got it in five guesses. So, not enough to break their streaks but a little close for comfort. You can read their thoughts below.

So, what makes today's answer so difficult? To discuss it, we're going to need to reveal the answer — so stop reading now if you haven't done it yet and don't want it spoiled...

Spoiler alert: Today's answer below

I'm going to assume you heeded the warning ahead and know the answer to today's puzzle is "Llama"

Any time we get a word with a repeated letter, it's harder to guess. You may have tried a word with a single L and got the yellow tile, meaning the letter is in the word but in the wrong place. There's a chance you waste valuable turns trying to place the single L before realizing there's a second. And you also don't find many five-letter words that start with L in the first place.

Furthermore, the word llama is a pretty unique one. It doesn't contain any of the common letters that make for a good Wordle starting guess, like E, T, A or R. If you want to get really word-nerdy, then there are only a handful of words in English that even start with a double L besides llama. Did you know, for instance, that a llano is the name for an open, grassy plain in the U.S. southwest?

At least most people will actually know what a llama is. On previous occasions, Wordle has served up an answer that most people may not even know is a word. One memorable example is Wordle #1,385, which was "krill" — small, shrimp-like crustaceans that are a crucial part of the ocean food chain.

How did the Tom's Guide team find today's Wordle?

We've got a few seasoned players on the Tom's Guide team, so I asked for their thoughts on today's puzzle.

Millie Fender, Managing Editor, Homes: "While none of the letters in today's Wordle are that unusual, there are two repeats, which made it very hard for me to get in the groove."

Richard Priday, Assistant Phones Editor: "I haven’t done a Wordle in months, but hearing it was tricky made me want to try again. After using my usual starting word, and then trying to find another vowel with my second attempt, I then moved to figuring out the first letter that would fit with the L in the second slot. After then, considering that tricky wordles often have a repeated letter, I was able to guess a word that revealed this was the case. And after putting it in the right spot, there was little else I could guess for my fifth, successful word."

Martin Shore, Staff Writer, Streaming: "I managed to get today's answer in 2. I knew going in today's answer was apparently a tough one, so I used a starter words with lots of vowels, and with one green letter locked in in the middle position, I thought back to one of Wordle's tricks (double letters, hint hint) and then the answer just sort of came to me."

Erin Bashford, Staff Writer, Reviews: "I got it in 4 today, which is my most common successful guess. I went for my usual plan of a vowel-heavy first guess, then I tried to knock out as many common consonant combinations as possible in guess two. Usually, from then on, my Wordle tactic involves "looking at the letters and hoping something sticks out". Thankfully, after a lucky third guess, my very scientific Wordle tactic came in clutch again."

Social media reacts

As you'd expect, plenty of players have taken to social media to comment on today's answer. On Twitter, #Wordle1523 began trending as people shared how they'd fared with the puzzle.

More from Tom's Guide

• I analyzed every Wordle answer to look for patterns — here's what I found
• This Wordle trick kept my streak going — and you'll probably hate it
• Best Wordle start words to help you keep your streak

If you’ve ever paused mid-game to Google a strategy or been stuck on a Wordle puzzle with no clue what to guess next, I've got good news for you.

Google just rolled out a powerful update to Circle to Search that brings real-time, AI-generated help directly into your mobile games.

Originally designed to let Android users quickly search by circling text or objects on their screen, Circle to Search is now smarter than ever thanks to a new AI Mode.

With this enabled, you can circle just about anything in your game, including dialogue, quests, items, puzzles, and instantly get context-aware help without leaving the app.

I tested it with Wordle — and it worked

One of the first things I tried was Wordle. I had two green letters, an A and an E, and no idea what to guess next.

I long-pressed my home bar, circled the puzzle grid and Circle to Search gave me a list of five-letter words that fit the pattern.

It even offered logic-based tips for narrowing down possibilities, without giving away the answer.

I also tried circling "best Wordle starting words" and got a well-curated list of statistically strong openers. For puzzle lovers who want hints but hate spoilers, this is the perfect in-between.

It goes beyond casual games

While Wordle was my test case, Circle to Search’s new AI Mode shines in more complex games, too.

For those who play Genshin Impact, you can circle a riddle and get context and explanations without needing to leave the game.

In Roblox, you can highlight an objective and get a quick summary of how to achieve it.

In Monster Hunter Now, circling a monster's name can bring up detailed info about weaknesses, gear recommendations and more.

All of this is possible without leaving the game or opening a browser tab. Instead, the AI-powered overlay appears on screen and serves up tailored results in seconds.

How to try it

The update is rolling out now to supported Android devices, including the Pixel 6 and newer, and the Samsung Galaxy S24 series.

To try it:

• Long-press your home button or gesture bar
• Activate Circle to Search
• Tap "AI Mode" in the overlay
• Start circling

Final thoughts

If you're the kind of gamer who likes to solve things mostly on your own but occasionally needs a nudge, this update is a dream. It’s also a huge win for mobile gamers who don’t want to juggle tabs or switch between screens.

With this update, Google is turning Circle to Search from a neat shortcut into a full-blown productivity and gaming assistant.

It seems to be part of a larger trend from Google, where features like Gemini Live and Gmail’s one-click unsubscribe show how AI is becoming seamlessly integrated into daily use.

For now, I’ll say this: if you play games on your phone, Circle to Search with AI Mode is about to become your new favorite cheat code, minus the actual cheating.

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• This ChatGPT prompt changed how I work — and I use it every Monday morning

After months of the same Wordle routine, I decided to create my own word puzzle games using AI and honestly, I'm never going back. Instead of being limited to one puzzle per day, I now have an endless supply of custom games that actually challenge me at my skill level.

You don't need any coding experience to make this work. Modern AI chatbots like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini can generate fully functional puzzle games in minutes. I tested all three to see which AI creates the most engaging alternatives to Wordle.

Turns out, AI is surprisingly good at creating games that keep you entertained during coffee breaks, commutes, or whenever you need a quick mental challenge.

Here's how to build your own collection of word games that goes way beyond the daily Wordle limit.

Now you've learned how to create your own wordle-style game in ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini, why not take a look at our other useful AI guides?

Check out 5 mind-blowing ChatGPT image prompts you’ll wish you knew sooner and how to choose the right ChatGPT model for any task.

Anthropic keeps taking Claude from strength to strength, make sure you explore Claude's latest feature: voice mode.

Today's Wordle answer is probably going to break some streaks.

According to our own Wordle expert, it's one of the toughest answers we've seen for a while and the average player will complete Wordle #1,385 in 5.0 moves when playing on easy mode. Ouch!

The in-game AI helper tool WordleBot analyzes your game after you've played it and it does the same for everyone else.

According to the bot, the average player completes today's puzzle in 4.9 moves when playing with hard rules. Believe it or not, that's not actually that high (puzzle #454 back in September '22 has a score of 6.3) — but it's enough to cause some upset.

Of course, if you want a helping hand you can check out our daily Wordle hint page for tips. There's no shame in it, this could be one of the toughest Wordle answers of 2025 so far.

We'll dive into why it's a tough Wordle today below, but only read on if you already know the answer.

Spoiler alert: Today's answer below

There's a lot of news happening right now. TikTok could be about to be banned, President Trump's tariffs are taking effect and Nintendo has just revealed the Nintendo Switch 2.

But in amongst it all, Wordle has served up a tricky one.

I'm going to assume you heeded the warning ahead and know the answer to today's puzzle: Krill.

There's the repeated 'L', obviously, but also the fact that KRILL is a word most of us rarely, if ever, use. Because most of us aren't marine biologists.

If you want to know what krill are, they're small, shrimp-like crustaceans that are a crucial part of the ocean food web, particularly in the Southern Ocean. They're a food source for whales, among others.

And just to be extra difficult, 'K' only starts 20 Wordle answers including this one.

I don't play Wordle myself, but my colleague Millie on the Tom's Guide Homes team is a regular player.

"Today's wordle lured me into a false sense of security," she told me

"On my third guess, I had four of the five letters sorted. All I had to do was find the first letter — easy enough, surely. I'd usually do a random word with as many un-used letters as possible to try and find the final letter, but against my better judgement, I rotated through all the _RILL words I could think of.

"There were so many to choose from! Brill? No. Grill? No. Frill? You get the picture. So yes, I lost my Wordle streak because of a crustacean. That'll teach me to stick to my strategy."

Social media reacts

As you'd expect, plenty of players have taken to social media to comment on today's answer

It's not hard to see why we've been given a difficult answer — Wordle has been running for a few years now and most of the easy words have been used up.

Did you find it tough? Did you lose your streak? Let us know in the comments below.

More from Tom's Guide

• I analyzed every Wordle answer to look for patterns — here's what I found
• This Wordle trick kept my streak going — and you'll probably hate it
• Best Wordle start words to help you keep your streak

Wordle has remained ever-popular as part of the morning routine for millions. And while many of you have already honed your strategy for solving the daily puzzle — with or without help from our daily Wordle hints and answers — there's always room for improvement.

Even though I've been playing Wordle for years, (and I've also analyzed every Wordle answer) I decided to give ChatGPT a shot to see if it could provide me any fresh insights. Here's the prompts I tried - and some of the answers its gave surprised me.

Most common letters

I started off with a fairly basic query, and asked ChatGPT for the most common letters in Wordle answers. It not only gave me that list, but also gave me a list of the most common first letters and last letters.

It then gave me a bit of advice: "Since E is the most frequent letter overall, and S is the most common starting letter, words containing these letters tend to be good opening guesses. Words like "SLATE", "CRANE", and "TRACE" are often recommended as strong starting words."

This isn't too original — the New York Times' Wordlebot will offer similar advice. We also made up our own list of the best Wordle start words.

Best Wordle strategy based on letter frequencies

Following ChatGPT's suggestion, I then asked it for the best Wordle strategy based on letter frequency. It then offered me five tips:

Its first piece of advice was to start with a strong opening word (SLATE, CRANE, TRACE, SLANT, RAISE).

Next, it said to optimize my second guess:

• If your first word reveals some correct letters but in the wrong place, rearrange them in the next word.
• If your first word doesn’t hit many letters, use a second guess that covers different high-frequency letters.
• Example: If you start with "CRANE" and get few hits, follow up with "MOUNT" to cover O, U, T, and M.

Then, ChatGPT said to look for common word patterns:

• Words ending in E (e.g., GRAPE, STONE, FLARE)
• Words with double letters (e.g., SHEEP, GLASS, HAPPY)
• Words with common consonant pairings (e.g., TH, CH, SH, ST, TR, CL, BR)

After that, ChatGPT told me to avoid wasting guesses, specifically, not to use a repeat letter unless you have a strong idea that it repeats, and don't use rare letters like Q, X, and Z "unless you're desperate."

ChatGPT's fifth piece of advice was to use word patterns to my advantage.

"If you know a word starts with S and ends with E, test words like SHORE, SLATE, SLOPE instead of random guesses.

If you have _IGHT, consider LIGHT, NIGHT, MIGHT, FIGHT—narrow it down strategically."

Best follow-up words

ChatGPT then asked if I would like to create a strategy around a specific starting word. I went with my usual "Stare" to see what would happen.

I found this advice pretty insightful — it could really help narrow down things.

What's the most difficult Wordle answer?

Some Wordles are trickier than others, so I asked ChatGPT what has been the most difficult Wordle, and what makes for a hard answer.

ChatGPT provided me a list of streak-enders, and then followed it up with things that make a Wordle answer hard:

Repeated letters (like RARER, FLUFF, or MOMMY)

Rare letters (like J, Q, X, Z)

Words without common vowels (like CRYPT, MYRRH, or GLYPH)

Obscure words (like EUCHRE or FJORD)

Tackling "_ight" words

One of the trickiest situations when solving Wordle is when you get three or four letters correct, but there are multiple options for the last letter — and you don't have enough guesses left.

So, I asked ChatGPT the following: "If I have _ight but only two guesses left, how should I figure out the last letter?"

First, it gave me a list of possible answers: (BLIGHT, BRIGHT, FLIGHT, FIGHT, MIGHT, NIGHT, RIGHT, SIGHT, TIGHT, WIGHT). Oddly, a few of these had six letters, which obviously wouldn't work.

ChatGPT's next piece of advice was to try a completely different word that would eliminate several choices at once:

• Since you have two guesses, your next word should test multiple possible letters at once. A good choice would be:
  • "BLIMP" → Covers B, L, M, and P
  • "CRUSH" → Covers C, R, U, and H
  • "WOUND" → Covers W, N, D, and O

If that didn't work, then ChatGPT advised to go with probability.

• If you’re completely stuck, the most common _IGHT words in Wordle history are:
  • RIGHT
  • SIGHT
  • NIGHT
  • LIGHT
  • MIGHT
• So if you have no other clues, RIGHT or NIGHT would be the best bets.

ChatGPT's advice here is a bit off, though. Wordle has yet to repeat any of its answers, so if you were to use RIGHT, SIGHT, NIGHT, or LIGHT, you would be wasting a turn. As of this writing, MIGHT, WIGHT, FIGHT, and TIGHT have not yet been used.

Why you shouldn't use "S" as a last letter

For a while, I used TARES as a starting word, but according to ChatGPT, it's not the best option. That's because Wordle very rarely has an answer that ends in "S."

• Estimated Frequency of "S" as the Last Letter in Wordle Answers
  • Historically, only about 2–3% of Wordle solutions end in S.
  • Compare that to E, which is by far the most common last letter.

Why is that? It's because most words that end in "S" are "just plurals (e.g., "BOOKS," "PLANS"), which Wordle typically avoids," responded ChatGPT.

"Some rare exceptions include words like "GLASS" or "CLASS", where S is not just a plural marker."

Most common last letter

While getting the first letter correct is always handy, ChatGPT also offered some tips if you know the last letter of a Wordle answer.

What's tomorrow's Wordle answer?

Can ChatGPT help you cheat at Wordle? Sadly no. When I asked it for tomorrow's answer, I got this reply:

"I can't predict or access future Wordle answers, as they are kept secret by the game. However, if you want strategies to improve your guessing or common word patterns, I can definitely help with that! Let me know how you'd like to refine your approach. 😊"

If you're stuck, you could always check out today's Wordle answer, which we update every day for those who are looking for a little tip or hint.

More from Tom's Guide

• I use ChatGPT every day — here's 7 prompts I can't live without
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Commuting is just a fact of life for some people, but your trip to and from work doesn't have to be a dull one. Way back when, your options may have been limited — bring a book, read a newspaper, stare out the train window — but the with one of the best phones on hand, you've got more ways than ever to get through your travels, thanks to all those apps you can install on your device.

For the past year, I've been commuting for about an hour every day. And over that time, I find myself coming back to the same five apps on my iPhone 15 Pro Max. Each of these offers something different, aside from letting me avoid looking someone in the eye, that helps to beat the commuter blues.

If you find yourself on a train or bus on a daily basis, perhaps you'll find that these apps help make the journey go more pleasantly, as they have for me.

Amazon Kindle

Over the last year I've found myself reading more on the Kindle app than before, and there’s no doubt that the majority of that time has been on the train. The reason for this increase is the Kindle app. This free app turns your phone into an e-reader and offers enough options to make the experience comfortable.

The biggest strength of the Kindle app, at least for me, is that it's so handy. Instead of having to carry around a book, or even an Amazon Fire tablet, I can have a full library in my pocket. There's also the advantage of Kindle giving access to certain books that would be a nightmare to find paper copies of — in my case The Horus Heresy series.

Running on Kindle has an added advantage — I don't need a lot of room to read on my phone. I just hold the device in one hand, which can be a real life saver on a cramped train with little to no seating and a high chance you might accidentally nudge someone in the ribs.

Download Amazon Kindle: Android, iOS

NYT Games

The second app will probably be familiar to a lot of you, especially if you’re a fan of Wordle. I have found myself constantly returning to NYT Games while waiting for a train.

The strength of the app for me is the amount options it has. While Wordle is the most popular game on the app — it's now caused more bragging and arguments in my family than Monopoly — there are several other brain teasers and puzzles, like Connections, to pass the time.

What's great is that you can play the daily game for free. If you're like me, that'll take up a fair amount of commute time. if you want to play more, then you can sign up for a paid subscription which allows you to play older puzzles.

There's one caveat, though: while NYT Games has a lot to offer, it does require internet to run. When I'm on the London Underground, that can be a pain, and connectivity may not always be available on your commute, either.

Download NYT Games: Android, iOS

1010!

There’s something to be said for a game that doesn’t really require a lot of focus. 1010! Is that game for me: it's a simple premise with a gameplay loop that's just fun. I couldn't play it for hours at a time, mind, but for 10 to 15 minutes, it's ideal.

1010!’s gameplay is essentially Tetris, although without the time pressure. You're continuously given sets of three shapes that you have to place in a grid. Once you fill a line, the blocks are removed, as you try to make sure you always have room to place the available shapes. While there's a bit of thought involved, you can safely turn your brain off while playing.

This makes 1010! the ideal commuting game for me, especially for short journeys. When I'm stuck on a crowded train, sometimes I just want an app that just lets me focus on a task and distracts me from the morning halitosis of the person on my left — 1010! does just that.

Download 1010!: Android, iOS

Warhammer 40,000: The App

Ask anyone who plays Warhammer, and they’ll tell you that half the fun comes from creating and playing around with lists. I love making new army lists when I have a spare minute, imagining how successful they’ll be on the table. Admittedly, that never tends to be the case as dice hate me, but the love remains.

Games Workshop’s Warhammer 40,000: The App allows me to do this with ease, although there are some limitations. You'll need a membership to make more than one list, and you need to have each army's Codex to get the most out of the app.

However, the interface makes the app easy to use, and there's little bits of lore sprinkled into each unit data card. In other words, there's plenty to keep my occupied as I wait for my train. Even better, there's no really need for Wi-Fi connectivity for basic functions, should your commute go through any areas with dead spots.

Download Warhammer 40,000: Android, iOS

Duolingo

Sometimes it's nice to just try and learn something new, including a new language. For trying to teach yourself a foreign tongue, few apps are quite as good as Duolingo, even if the owl can be a bit pushy.

The advantage I've found with Duolingo is that it makes learning on the move much easier. The app's game-like features mean that I can sit on a train and go through lessons until I run out of hearts — usually about a 5-minute burst. The option to turn off any speaking exercises helps with this, as no one else on the train has to hear my terrible accent as I practice speaking

Admittedly, Duolingo's focus on gamification does come with some downsides. The app can be a bit pushy to force you to pay for its "super" membership, but I've never felt it was necessary. Besides, using a commute to try and expand my language options is probably better for my mental health than constantly swiping on dating apps.

Download Duolingo: Android, iOS

What apps do you use?

These five apps all work for me when I'm stuck on that morning commute or evening trip home, but they're by no means set in stone. Over time, I'll find new ones or get bored of the current and replace with something different.

So what apps are you currently using when you're stuck on a train or bus? Do you have a particular app that helps you get through your daily journey and why would you recommend it to others? Let us know in the comments.

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What started as a pandemic pastime has become an enduring diversion for millions every morning; Wordle has become one of the most popular online games. One of the appeals is its challenge, and to see how your score compares with that of everyone else who played that day.

To that end, the New York Times' Wordlebot analyzes everyone's scores and the average number of guesses it takes to solve each day's puzzle. According to the Wordlebot, these were the 10 most difficult Wordles of 2024.

As a note of warning, this story will reveal Wordle answers from the past year. If you need hints for a current puzzle, be sure to check out today's Wordle hint and answer. Also, if you want to play past Wordle puzzles, you can sign up to access the Wordle Archive from The New York Times.

Note: This only reflects Wordles through December 19, so if there's another stumper between then and now, it's not on here.

I'd like to thank Engaging Data's archive of Wordle stats for help in compiling this list. Otherwise, it would have taken me a lot longer to put together.

Wordle #990 - March 5

NYT average: 5.3
Solve rate: 83%

This day's answer was HUNCH, which undoubtedly took many longer to solve, especially if they figured out the final four letters, but were stumped on the first; I'm sure many tried Bunch, Lunch, Munch, and Punch to no avail.

Wordle #1218 - October 19

NYT average: 5.3
Solve rate: 80%

Twenty percent of all Wordle players failed to find the correct work (FIBER); as with some others we'll see that are particularly tricky, if you correctly guessed "_I_ER," you're stuck with a lot of potential combinations. "F" as a first letter is fairly common, appearing 135 times, but "B" as the third letter only appears a total of 56 times.

Wordle #1272 - December 12

NYT Average: 5.3
Solve rate: 87%

This answer (VYING) was a tricky one, as it starts with two letters you rarely see together, much less at the start. In our Wordle analysis, V only appears a total of 43 times as a starting letter, and Y only appears in the second position 22 times.

Wordle #980 - February 24

NYT Average: 5.4
Solve rate: 75%

Today's answer (PIPER) was difficult as it has a repeated letter "P," and if you got the remaining letters first, you were presented with a bevy of options: Liver, River, Miler, Diver, Riper, Viper, Wiper, and Piler, to name a few. In fact, it even tripped us up!

Wordle #1065 - May 19

NYT Average: 5.4
Solve rate: 73%

This puzzle literally threw a HITCH into people's plans to continue their Wordle streaks. As with some of the other trickier Wordles, this one includes a repeated letter "H," which only happens 10 times total through all of the Wordle answers. Plus, there are many other options for "_ITCH," which tripped many up.

Wordle #1208 - October 9

NYT Average: 5.4
Solve rate: 80%

This answer literally had people calling out for their MOMMY; having a Wordle answer with three of the same letter is exceedingly rare, occurring only 20 times in all Wordle answers.

Wordle #1039 - April 23

NYT Average: 5.5
Solve rate: 70%

ROVER proved a tricky one for a lot of people, as "_OVER" presents a lot of different alternatives: Cover, Lover, Hover, and Mover were most likely guessed by solvers — like us — trying to figure this one out.

Wordle #1273 - December 13

NYT Average: 5.5
Solve rate: 72%

As a letter, "X" only appears a total of 37 times in all Wordle answers, so it's not one that comes up very often, so "BOXER" probably didn't come to mind for many. Plus, the combination of "_O_ER" has dozens of alternatives. Not surprising then, that more than 25% of players failed this one.

Wordle #1037 - April 21

NYT Average: 5.6
Solve rate: 71%

The second-hardest Wordle of 2024, JOLLY, also had a double letter, plus the infrequently used J — there are only 20 words that start with it in all the Wordle answers. Plus, if you get "_OLLY," there are a lot of alternatives: Holly, Folly, Golly, Lolly, and Dolly. Add that up, and you've got a word that 29% of all players failed to reach in six guesses.

Wordle #1214 - October 15

NYT Average: 5.9
Solve rate: 56%

By far the hardest Wordle of the past two years, nearly half of everyone who tried this puzzle failed to figure it out. On the surface, a word like "CORER" wouldn't seem too difficult, but there are a few things leading to its trickiness. C as a starting letter isn't exactly rare; it shows up 198 times, which is the second-most common after S. However, there's two r's, which happens just 60 times in all or Wordle, and the combination of "_O_ER", which we've seen in other difficult puzzles, once again rears its head here.

Wordle has become a daily ritual for many, with players eagerly sharing their streaks and bragging rights across social media. I’ve never been one to jump on the bandwagon. However, after seeing today's Wordle answer (#1,244, Thursday, November 14) trending on X, along with my colleagues talking about losing their streaks, I couldn’t help but be curious and have a go myself.

Why not right? To my surprise, I managed to guess what is said to be “one of the hardest words of 2024” in just four tries. And to be honest, there wasn’t much strategy involved. It was just pure luck. I’m definitely not claiming to be a Wordle expert, nor do I have any kind of mastery over words, because that’s certainly not the case.

If you’re stuck or just wondering how I got the answer in four guesses, here’s a rundown of what I did to get today’s tough word.

How I got today’s word on Wordle — spoiler alert

SPOILERS going forward because I will be revealing the answer!

Honestly, my first guess was a stroke of luck — it already gave me two yellow letters. I started with “plane” for no particular reason other than it had common letters and two vowels.

Once I had L and A, I decided to take a bit of a gamble with an uncommon word that most people probably wouldn’t think of for Wordle. Since I knew this answer was going to be tough, I went for something more daring — “dally” was my second guess. While it didn’t introduce any new letters, it did confirm that L was in the right spot and A wasn’t.

Feeling bold, I pushed the boundaries even further and focused on words with rarer letters, especially V and X. My colleague, Kaycee Hill, a fellow how-to writer at Tom’s Guide, suggested that using V might be a smart move. We went with “villa” next, which was actually risky considering the word didn't have double L's. But thankfully the guess was worth it, because it confirmed that the word did contain V, and that L and A belonged at the end.

That led me to the answer “uvula.” It’s not a word many people are familiar with, but I’d heard of it before (it’s the fleshy structure that hangs down at the back of your throat). Knowing this gave me somewhat of an advantage, and I was able to make the guess fairly quickly.

Again, I wasn’t calculating the odds like a Wordle wizard or using any advanced strategy — it was getting the right combination of letters in the right order at just the right time. I’m definitely not a Wordle master, but this little win felt like a fluke. In fact, I might start playing Wordle more often just for the fun of it.

More from Tom's Guide

• I asked ChatGPT to solve today's super difficult Wordle and it did not go well
• Best Wordle start words to help you keep your streak
• I analyzed every Wordle answer to look for patterns — here's what I found

A Wordle streak is a point of pride for a lot of players across the globe and while a high score is nice, it's the cherry on top of onward progress. So there's some understandable concern blazing through social media right now because today's Wordle answer (#1,244, Thursday, November 14) is a very tough nut to crack.

In fact, our resident Wordle player here at Tom's Guide has gone as far as calling today's puzzle one of the hardest of 2024 so far. So it's not surprising many people may see their streak come to an end today. To quote Obi-Wan Kenobi, it's as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced.

The in-game AI helper tool WordleBot analyzes your game after you've played it and it does the same for everyone else. According to the bot, the average player completes puzzle #1,244 in 4.9 moves in easy mode, or 4.5 if playing by hard rules. Which, actually, isn't that high (puzzle #454 back in September '22 has a score of 6.3) — so what's going on?

Warning: Spoiler ahead!

If you've carried on reading, I'm going to assume you're happy to know the answer to today's Wordle score. It's UVULA.

Right? Me neither.

It may sound like a made-up word but it does actually mean something. I had to Google it, but according to WebMD it's "that soft flap of tissue that looks like a droplet at the back of your mouth".

The answer starts with UVU which you would only find in very few other words, and actually having two letter U's in the answer is extremely rare. Enough to stump even hardcore players. Not to mention that most people probably won't ever have even heard of it.

The social media meltdown

As you'd expect, there's a lot of worry on social media — so much so that #Wordle1244 is trending on X.com.

Plenty of players aren't happy with today's answer and commentators have pointed out that the recent crop of Wordle answers have been very difficult.

It's not hard to see why, as the game has been running for a few years now and most of the easy words have been used up.

It stumped the Tom's Guide team

The effect of today's puzzle was also felt around Tom's Guide HQ with many of our team falling foul and losing their hard-won streaks. Here's what some of my Wordle-playing colleagues had to say about it.

"I play the Wordle every morning without fail and I'd like to think I've got it down to a fine art, so when I found myself 5 guesses down with only 3 yellow tiles in the bag this morning, I sincerely felt a little wronged by the NYT, our Homes editor, Millie Fender told me. "It turns out that little dopamine hit of getting the Wordle is crucial to starting my day off right. I treated myself to a latte as a consolation prize."

Meanwhile, one of our review writers, Nikita Achanta, also suffered a streak-ending result.

"It was a 45-day streak so I was quite sad, and I feel like Wordle has been quite hard these past few days — today's was just the nail in the coffin," she said. "I've only ever lost my streak twice; hopefully never again."

However, one team member did get it. Alix Blackburn, our resident streaming writer, was up to the task. She said, “I don’t play Wordle, but I got the hardest word in four guesses.” What a flex.

If you were one of those who lost their streak through today's puzzle then commiserations. But pick yourself up, dust yourself down and we'll see you tomorrow to begin anew.

More from Tom's Guide

• I analyzed every Wordle answer to look for patterns — here's what I found
• This Wordle trick kept my streak going — and you'll probably hate it
• Best Wordle start words to help you keep your streak

The month of May seems to be when the New York Times Games adds new archives for the various games in the Games app. Last year it was past Spelling Bee puzzles, and in 2024 NYT Games is adding playable past Wordle sessions. 

Announced Tuesday, the Wordle archive is offering more than 1,000 Wordle puzzles for puzzlers to access. The NYT Games version of Wordle just hit 1,000 puzzles this past March.

The archive is only being offered to Games and All Access subscribers. Free users will not get access to the archives. 

In the announcement, NYT Games says that the Wordle archive is rolling out on both mobile and desktop, followed by the Games app. The rollout is expected to take place over the next couple of months. 

We checked our accounts, and had not yet received the archive as of this writing. But the company does say the Wordle archive will be available globally.  

The Times says that the Wordle archive will ensure that solvers can catch up on puzzles they missed and solve them at their own pace or enjoy more Wordle. 

“This expansion is not just about playing past puzzles; it’s about deepening the connection our community has with Wordle and with each other,” said Jonathan Knight, head of Games at The New York Times, in the announcement. “We believe this will make the daily puzzle even more engaging and provide even more moments of surprise and delight for our subscribers to share with friends and family.”

Wordle was acquired by the New York Times in 2022 and has been a fairly popular addition to the Games app ever since. 

In March, the app was redesigned with a focus on streamlined navigation and progress tracking. The Wordle archive seems like a natural step along that path. Is a Connections archive next? 

The Games app also announced that WordleBot is immediately available in the NYT Games app. After solving the day’s Wordle, you can see a link for WordleBot underneath your lifetime stats. The Bot analyses how you did that day and compares your performance to the average NYT Games solver. 

The WordleBot is both something of an AI you can pit yourself against and a stats tool for comparison. The media company says that the WordleBot is designed so “solvers can more easily challenge themselves to think about Wordle and how they could approach the game differently, compare their scores in order to assess their skills and strategies.”

More from Tom's Guide

• I analyzed every Wordle answer to look for patterns
• Best Wordle start words to help you keep your streak
• This is one of the worst Wordle start words, according to the NY Times

Are you still a Wordle fanatic? Then you may have your favorite start words that you use every day. But, some start words are far better than others. The New York Times analyzed more than 515 million Wordle answers over the past year and a half, and discovered a number of trends, including the most popular Wordle start words, and which of those were the most — and least — efficient when it came to solving Wordle. 

The most popular — but least efficient — Wordle start word

According to the The New York Times' analysis of 515 million Wordle games completed between Dec. 1, 2022, and Nov. 30, 2023., the most popular Wordle start word is ADIEU, with six percent of all players using it as their opening gambit. The next is STARE at 4.9%, SLATE at 3.9%, AUDIO at 3.6%, and RAISE at 3.1%.

However, it turns out that using ADIEU as an opening word is a mistake. 

"On average, players who started with ADIEU needed about a third of a turn more to solve their Wordles compared with players who started with SLATE, adding up to 132 extra turns over the course of a year," reads the Times' story. 

"Even worse: While 1.7 percent of SLATE starters failed to solve a Wordle on average, the chance of failure with ADIEU more than doubled, to 3.6 percent."

Maybe more people should check out our list of the best Wordle start words. 

There are a lot of Wordle cheaters

Another interesting finding by The New York Times is that more players guess the correct answer on the first try — 1 in every 250 chances — which is far more than if they were to randomly guess the answer. Perhaps they've read our own today's Wordle answer story? 

Other popular starting words

As the story notes, starting each Wordle game with the same starting word can get boring, no matter how efficient. Around almost every holiday, other words spike in popularity: 

• Christmas Eve (Dec. 24, 2022): MERRY
• Christmas Day: MERRY, GIFTS, PEACE
• New Year’s Eve: PARTY, YEARS
• New Year’s Day (Jan. 1, 2023): YEARS, PARTY, HAPPY, FRESH
• The Super Bowl (Feb. 12): SUPER
• Valentine’s Day: HEART, LOVER, CUPID
• St. Patrick’s Day: LUCKY
• Easter: RISEN, BUNNY
• Coronation of Charles III and Camilla (May 6): CROWN, ROYAL
• Labor Day: LABOR
• Halloween: GHOST
• Thanksgiving: THANK, GRAVY, FEAST

Other findings

The New York Times' story has some more interesting info on other popular starting words, the toughest words to solve, as well as the most surprising words for the Wordlebot. It's worth checking out, especially if you play Wordle every day.

More from Tom's Guide

• Today's NYT Connections hints and answers
• Best Wordle start words to help you keep your streak
• This Wordle trick kept my streak going — and you'll probably hate it.

I feel like I owe all you Wordle fans a blanket apology. 

When the daily online word game launched nearly two years ago, I wasn't above making the snide observation or three about how obsessed people were with playing Wordle. I may have grumbled a bit when people began littering my Twitter timeline with their daily Wordle results. (Turns out far worse things were about to happen to Twitter, but that's a story for another time.) And I shook my head at the steady stream of Wordle imitators looking to cash in on what I naturally assumed was a fad.

Look, I didn't get it at the time. I didn't understand. But now I do.

Oh, not because I've gotten into Wordle. Not my cup of team I'm afraid. But I have found my own brain-testing daily quiz that gives me shot at either glory or shame. And I now understand what it's like to have a Wordle-esque ritual as part of your morning routine.

I understand it all, because I've become similarly obsessed with Immaculate Grid.

What is Immaculate Grid

Like Wordle, Immaculate Grid appears once a day online at a set time — 9 a.m. ET in this case. And it's usually the first thing I tackle right after skimming through all the emails that arrived for me overnight. I wouldn't go so far as to say my outlook for the rest of the day hinges upon how I do on Immaculate Grid, but a perfect score makes the sun shine a little bit brighter, the coffee taste a little bit richer and the demands of the day a little less insurmountable.

As Wordle is to wordsmiths, so Immaculate Grid is to sports fans — baseball, in particular, in the game's original format. Immaculate Grid draws its name from the concept of the immaculate inning, where a pitcher retires all three batters on strikeouts, throwing no more than nine pitches.

To that end, Immaculate Grid features a 3x3 grid — nine spaces in total — and you've got exactly nine guesses to fill in each space. One false answer, and that dooms your chance at immortality for the next 24 hours.

For the most part, the x- and y-axis of the grid features the logos of Major League Baseball teams, though sometimes Immaculate Grid throws us a curve with categories like "40-plus stolen bases in a season" or ".300 career average." You fill in each individual square with the name of a player who matches the criteria of both the x- and y-axis -- for instance, someone who played for both the Miami Marlins and the Minnesota Twins or someone who was at some point a Toronto Blue Jay but made an all-star team while he was there.

It's a game that rewards the ability to recall seemingly random collections of players, which frankly is half the pleasure in being a sports fan. I may have trouble recalling all the to-dos I promised my wife I'd take care of just an hour ago, but I can recall Los Angeles Dodger lineups of the 1980s with stunning clarity. Immaculate Grid rewards me for that otherwise wasted brain space.

There's an added twist to the game in the form of what Immaculate Grid's creator has dubbed the Rarity Score. For each player you correctly assign to a spot in the grid, you are awarded points based on how frequently other people gave the same answer. The lower the point total, the better your Rarity Score — I try to get mine under 100 each day — so the greater temptation to pick a very obscure player. Of course, that only increases the risk that you're going to guess wrong by avoiding a more obvious choice that would inflate your Rarity Score. its really a fiendish addition to the gameplay.

Why you should play Immaculate Grid

If you prefer other sports to baseball, don't write off Immaculate Grid — it's expanded to other pastimes, most recently adding women's basketball to test your knowledge of WNBA player movement. That joins men's basketball, football, hockey and soccer — the latter of which requires broad knowledge of the top European leagues. Good luck finding your way out of that rabbit hole.

No matter the sport, the appeal of Immaculate Grid is its one-and-done nature. You only get once chance each day to beat the game, so you better make the most of it. And as I said, the temptation to post a low Rarity Score adds to the degree of difficulty in an engaging way.

And so just as Wordle fans take to Twitter with their scores, I'll be crowing about my Immaculate Grid triumphs and lamenting my near misses. I'll be spending my mornings trying to remember who might have put in time with both the Milwaukee Brewers and Baltimore Orioles. And I'll be frightening the neighbors with my whoops of delight when my Rarity Score lands in the single digits.

More from Tom's Guide

• Best Wordle start words to help you keep your streak
• I've analyzed every Wordle answer used — here's what I found
• I'm using an attachable monitor with my laptop — it's a total game-changer

Last year, my former colleague Mark McLaren downloaded the entire list of every Wordle answer to look for patterns and clues that could help you possibly solve the puzzle faster. 

Intrigued by his findings, I decided to take a different approach and analyze every Wordle answer that's been used. After all, we've a ways to go before every one of the possible 2,309 answers have been used, and now that Wordle is owned by The New York Times, the order isn't always the same. 

With that, here's my Moneyball-style analysis of the Wordle answers used thus far. I'll try and keep this story up to date as more answers are revealed. 

Of course, if you're stumped on the game, be sure to check out our today's Wordle answer story, which is updated daily.

One quick note before we start: this analysis is of every Wordle answer used from the start to July 12, 2023, and includes those days when there were two answers. I plan to update this story periodically as we get new puzzle solutions.

Most common letters

As you can see from the list below, E is by far the most common letter used, appearing 376 times (and counting), followed by A with 339 and R (302). Also topping 200 are T (254), O (250), L (218), and I (203). That's the same order as we found when we analyzed every Wordle answer. 

I was actually surprised that S (189) was the eighth-most popular letter — certainly that it was outranked by I. 

Those high-value Scrabble letters — J and Q — are the least frequently used letters, so don't expect to find them all that often.

Most common letters by position

Next, let's look at where letters have appeared the most, starting with the first letter: S has been used the most often — 103 times — followed by C (70), A (57), B (57), and T (49). 

For the second letter, O is the most popular, with 108 appearances, followed by A (100), R (92), L (72), and E (68).

When it comes to the middle letter, A (104) is the most common, followed by O (87). Then, there's a drop-off to I (83), U (56), and E (55).

In the fourth position, E is by far the most common letter at 83 appearances, followed by R (56), A (54), N (53), and S (49). 

When it comes to an ending, you're most likely to find E here, as it's shown up 146 times — nearly 20% of the time. Next is Y (102), followed by T (95), R (68), L (49), and D (44) and H (43). After that, things drop off pretty quickly.

So, how does that compare to every Wordle answer? It's slightly different — right now, O has been used the most as the second letter, rather than A. 

Most common starting combos

If you plan to start your guess with ST, you'll have better odds of hitting the correct letters than with any other pair. That's because ST has been used 23 times so far. 

That also tracks with our analysis of every Wordle answer, in which ST shows up 65 times. So, ST has been used about 3.2% of the time, but it's only in 3% of the words in total.

If you choose to end your word with ER, you'll have even better luck: that combination has been used 43 times so far, and is more than double the next-most popular combo, RY (17). That's about 5% of all Wordle answers thus far. However, it appears in 6.1% of every possible Wordle answer (eventually, it will appear 141 times), so the frequency at which it shows up should increase ever so slightly.

Double letters

What are the chances you'll see double letters when you play Wordle? Not great. Double letters have appeared just 94 times so far — roughly 12% of the time. That should increase to about 15% by the time Wordle has used every five-letter word, assuming the New York Times doesn't repeat a word.

And when they have, they've been largely limited to a few selections. EE and OO have appeared the most often, at 16 and 17 apiece, followed by LL (14) and SS (12). After that, it's all single-digit appearances.

Vowels vs. consonants

Where are you most likely to see a vowel versus a consonant? It all depends on how you feel about the letter Y.

Regardless of your opinion, the vast majority of Wordle answers thus far have both started and ended with a consonant, rather than a vowel. If you consider Y to be a vowel, then there's about a 60% chance that the last letter is a consonant; if you think Y is a consonant, that figure jumps to 74%.

However, the second and third letters are as likely — if not more — to be a vowel, rather than a consonant. 

The fourth letter is twice as likely to be a consonant than a vowel. 

Three of one letter

Exceedingly rare is when three of a single letter appear in a word. In fact, it's only happened five times so far: ERROR, FLUFF, MUMMY, NANNY and SISSY. 

What would you like to see?

Hopefully, this gives you some greater insight into all the Wordle letters used. It was a great way for me to dive into a lot of spreadsheets, that's for sure. Leave some notes in the comments as to what other analysis you'd like, and I'll try and add it to the story.

More from Tom's Guide

• Today's Wordle Answer
• What is Wordle and how to play — everything you need to know
• Best Wordle start words

The New York Times has just announced a new daily puzzle game that could become as fiendishly addictive as Wordle.

Swapping letters for numbers, Digits is the new browser-based numbers game that’s currently being tested in beta.

It works in a similar way to Wordle. Players are given a goal number and then six other numbers they can use to add, subtract, divide or multiply in order to reach the target.

You aren’t just limited to those numbers, though. For example, you could multiply two of the numbers and then use the outcome as an additional figure to get you closer to the goal.

In the test run I took at the game, I was trying to reach a total of 66 with the following numbers: 1, 3, 4, 5, 10 and 25.

By multiplying five and 10, I got 50 which, when combined with 25 got me up to 75. I then tried to reduce the number as much as possible using my remaining three digits (numbers disappear after you’ve used them).

As you can see from the image below, the best I could manage was 67.

lHowever, unlike Wordle (which requires you to get the answer exactly right) Digits will give you a score based on how close you get to the target number. If you’re bang on, you get three stars. In my case, I got two stars but I may still have got one, even if I was a little further out. 

And if you’re a perfectionist, you can keep trying at the puzzle until you get your three stars.

Will Digits become the new Worldle?

According to the New York Times, Digits will be available this week for “a limited time beta-release.” The success of the beta trial will inform whether the publication pushes it out into a fully-formed daily game.

“If the response to the game isn’t what the team is hoping for, the [NYT’s greenlight] committee must decide whether further tuning would be helpful or if the development of the game should end,” wrote the publication.

You can try the Digits beta for yourself here.

Last year, the NYT paid a reported seven-figure fee to acquire Wordle from developer Josh Wordle as part of a strategy to grow its digital subscription base. The plucky word game continues to delight players every day and the NYT will no doubt be hoping for the same success from the math-minded among us with Digits.

More from Tom's Guide

• Wordle helps me and my dad keep in touch — here's how
• ChatGPT takes on Wordle: AI invents addictive free game you can play right now
• What is Wordle and how to play — everything you need to know

Despite my job, I’m not very good at Wordle. But, like the good folks in Maine, I’m also not above cheating. 

Rather than merely Google the answer, I asked an incredibly smart AI trained on over 500 billion words, the new Bing with ChatGPT, to help me. Easy, right? It turns out, not so much. 

Beware spoilers for today’s Wordle. 

After three guesses of my own left me with just two correctly placed  ‘E’ letters but nothing else in a pattern of _E_E_, I was stumped. The new Bing is capable of so many things, including the ability to produce code for games in seconds. But in this case it seemed to struggle with counting to five. Asking it to help me with that Wordle setup, it initially only suggested four-letter words, “mere” and then “gene”. 

After reminding it we were looking for a five letter word, the AI suggested a batch of possible solutions that were, again, incompatible. 

None of the suggestions had an ‘E’ as the second letter. 

How did Bard do?

In brief, just as bad. If not arguably worse. 

I’ve tested Bing with ChatGPT vs Bard a lot and I’ve yet to see both handle a task so poorly. Asking to solve the Wordle in the hashtag format (e.g. #E#E#) Bard stated “The Wordle #384 is “Eager” which isn’t true (that one was Showy) or compatible with the answer we’re looking for. 

I implored Bard to try again and it once again claimed to be answering Wordle #384 this time convinced the answer was “Voice”. Again this doesn’t fit the letters we already know. 

After a painful conversation going round in circles, during which time Bard accused me of trying to trick it, I tried presenting the puzzle using underscores _E_E_. Its first answer was “EEE” but unless this was Dolphin speak for Beset (the correct answer) then Bard was wrong again. 

Bard made several other incompatible guesses before concluding “You’re right. There is no five-letter word where the second letter is E and the fourth letter is E.” Somehow I managed to gaslight Google.

Why is AI so bad at Wordle?

Considering they are based on expensively-created Large Language Models like GPT4 and LaMDA, you would think these AI chatbots could handle Wordle no problem. But clearly, that's not the case. Which also may explain why those creating games with ChatGPT like Sumplete have stuck to working with numbers. 

In a piece for The Conversation Professor of Computer Science at the University of Galway Michael G. Madden explains that because of the neural networks they work on, “all text inputs must be encoded as numbers and the process that does this doesn’t capture the structure of letters within words.”

He writes: "At the core of ChatGPT is a deep neural network: a complex mathematical function – or rule – that maps inputs to outputs. The inputs and outputs must be numbers. Since ChatGPT4 works with words, these must be 'translated' to numbers for the neural network to work with them.

"The translation is performed by a computer program called a tokenizer, which maintains a huge list of words and letter sequences, called “tokens”. These tokens are identified by numbers. A word such as 'friend' has a token ID of 6756, so a word such as 'friendship' is broken down into the tokens 'friend' and 'ship'. These are represented as the identifiers 6756 and 6729.

"When the user enters a question, the words are translated into numbers before ChatGPT4 even starts processing the request. The deep neural network does not have access to the words as text, so it cannot really reason about the letters."

How can this inaccuracy be fixed? There are two ways that future LLMs can overcome this. First, ChatGPT-4 knows the first letter of every word, so its training data could be augmented to include mappings of every letter position within every word in its dictionary.

The second is a more exciting and general solution. Future LLMs could generate code to solve problems like this…A recent paper demonstrated an idea called Toolformer, where an LLM uses external tools to carry out tasks where they normally struggle, such as arithmetic calculations."

For now, fellow Wordle cheats, let's stick to search engines and social media. 

More from Tom's Guide

1. ChatGPT is more useful to society than cryptocurrency, says Nvidia
2. What is Google Bard? Everything you need to know about ChatGPT rival
3. How to use the new Bing with ChatGPT — and what you can do with it

Remembering all of the passwords for each of your online accounts may soon be a thing of the past thanks to passkeys.

The best password managers already allow you to securely store and use your existing passwords across different sites and services. However, if you’re using simple passwords for your accounts, reusing passwords across multiple accounts or your passwords were leaked in a data breach, your accounts can still be hacked.

Passkeys aim to make all of your accounts more secure by using passwordless login in place of traditional passwords since each passkey is a unique digital key that can’t be reused. They’re also stored in an encrypted format on your devices instead of on a company’s servers which keeps them safe in the event of a data breach.

If you’re considering making the switch to using passkeys, this is everything you need to know about this new alternative to passwords along with all of the devices and services that currently support them.

The problem with passwords

The first digital password was actually invented in 1961 by MIT computer science professor Fernando Corbato who needed a way for several users to work on the same computer. In the time since, passwords have become an integral part of our digital lives and we now use them everyday.

Passwords can be short or long with the latter being more secure. Besides letters and numbers, you can also add different symbols to your passwords to make them harder to guess. However, as passwords become more complex, people have a more difficult time remembering them which is why both password reuse and using simple passwords like “123456” is such a common practice despite the security risks.

Tom's Guide also spoke with Andrew Shikiar, the executive director and CMO of the FIDO Alliance, about passwords and passkeys. He explained that the main difference between the two is that unlike passkeys, passwords are easily readable by humans which makes them less secure, saying:

"There is a fundamental difference between passwords, which are human-readable “secrets” transmitted over the internet, and passkeys, which are a possession-based authentication method leveraging advanced cryptography.

"Unlike passwords, passkeys do not rely on human-readable shared secrets that are highly susceptible to attack and easy to bypass. Passkeys change the paradigm of how people are typically authenticating online today by replacing the password with an unphishable primary factor for user authentication that is built into virtually every modern computing device today."

Passkeys promise to be much more secure without requiring the user to remember anything. 

What are passkeys?

Passkeys are a new type of login credential that allow you to log in to sites and services without having to enter a password. There’s nothing to remember and you can use them with the devices you already own like your smartphone or laptop. Passkeys are built on the WebAuthentication or WebAuthn standard which uses public-key cryptography to better secure your accounts. 

Besides data breaches, passkeys also can’t be stolen in phishing attacks. Cybercriminals and hackers often use phishing or social engineering as a way to gain access to someone’s username and password in order to steal their accounts. With passkeys, though, you have a private and public key and while the public key stays on a company’s servers, the private key remains on your device and can’t be easily stolen.

Creating and using passkeys

If you head to a website that supports passkeys like the ones listed below, you’ll be able to create a new account and use a passkey to secure it instead of password.

During this process, the site will ask you to confirm your authenticator which can be your smartphone, another mobile device or a password manager that supports passkeys. However, the authenticator still requires that you use another form of verification to access your password. While this could be a master password like with password manager, it can also be biometrics. By using your face or fingerprint, you’re not only making the process more secure but you also don’t have to remember a password for your authenticator.

Remember those private and public keys we mentioned earlier? They’re generated by your authenticator and are mathematically related. The public key is stored on a company’s website for when you want to login while the private key remains secret and is only stored on your device. 

When it comes time to login, the site’s server will send a challenge to the authenticator which your private key will solve and send a response back to the server. While the server is able to verify that public and private keys match, it actually doesn’t need to know the contents of your private key to verify it.

Once this is complete, you’ll be able to access the account you set up using a passkey instead of a password. This process also happens quite quickly and may even be faster than entering a traditional password depending on how long it is.

Although you’ll likely store your passkeys on your smartphone, you can also use them to log in to sites and services on your computer. In this case, the site will generate a QR code that you scan with your smartphone and then you can login using a passkey. However, your computer needs to have Bluetooth to establish a secure connection between it and your phone. 

What devices are compatible with passkeys?

Even though passkeys are still relatively new, they’re already compatible with all of the best phones and many of the best computers. This is because Microsoft, Google, Apple and other tech giants worked to develop them together using FIDO Alliance and W3C standards.

With the release of iOS 16 last fall, Apple brought passkeys to the iPhone. On its devices, passkeys use TouchID and FaceID for authentication instead of a master password which makes things even easier. If you want to try them out for yourself, here’s how to set up passkeys on iPhone, iPad and Mac.

If you’re using one of the best Android phones or even an Android tablet, your passkeys are stored and synced using the Google Password Manager. However, if you want to use passkeys with it, you need to set up screen lock on your Android device first as this prevents others with access to your smartphone from using your passkeys.

For those using a Windows PC, you can use Microsoft’s Windows Hello to sign into your accounts using passkeys on both Windows 10 and Windows 11. Since your passkeys are synced with your Microsoft account, you can even use them on other devices as long as you’re logged in.

As for your web browser, Chrome, Edge, Safari and Firefox all currently support passkeys. You need to be running version 79 or higher for Chrome/Edge, version 13 or higher for Safari and version 60 or higher for Firefox.

What happens when you upgrade to a new smartphone?

Since you store passkeys on your smartphone instead of remembering them, you may be wondering what happens when you upgrade to a new smartphone. No need to worry as they can easily be transferred over to a new device.

On Android, when you set up a new smartphone, your end-to-end encryption keys are securely transferred when you move the rest of your apps and data to it. However, in some cases such as when an older device is lost or damaged, you may need to recover them from a secure online backup. To do this, you need to provide the lock screen PIN, password or pattern from the previous device that has access to those keys.

Since your passkeys are stored in your iCloud Keychain, upgrading to one of the best iPhones won’t be a problem either. Just log in using your Apple ID on the new device and respond to an SMS sent to a trusted phone number. From here, you need to enter the device passcode but iOS, iPadOS and macOS only give you 10 attempts to authenticate according to this support document from Apple.

What sites currently allow you to use passkeys?

Besides setting up passkeys on your smartphone or computer, you also need to find sites and services that support them in order to use them. Fortunately, a number of big brands including eBay, PayPal, Best Buy, Nvidia and more already do. 

If you’re looking for other sites and services that support passkeys, 1Password has put together a passkeys directory that users can contribute to. It’s also searchable which makes it easy to find out whether or not a company offers passkey support.

Expect other brands to announce that they now support passkeys as this alternative to passwords becomes more mainstream. 

Will passkeys replace passwords entirely?

Passwords have been around for a long time and people are familiar and comfortable with using them. Still, weak or reused passwords can put both people and the companies they work for at risk, which is why there has been such strong support for passkeys.

As with any other change, the transition from passwords to passkeys will likely take time. However, with Microsoft, Google and Apple pushing this new technology so strongly, it wouldn’t be surprising if passwords completely disappeared over the course of the next few years. 

However, as Shikiar notes "passkey support is built into virtually every modern computing device today and is being endorsed industry wide by major players". He also believes "that within the next 3-5 years the vast majority of consumer internet services will have passkey sign-in options – greatly reducing reliance on passwords".

In the meantime though, you can start using passkeys for your online accounts today to make them more secure to get one step ahead of hackers.

More from Tom's Guide

• The best antivirus software right now
• I’m a security editor and this is how I create strong, easy to remember passwords
• Bitwarden vs LastPass: Which password manager wins?

ChatGPT is revolutionizing the way we use the internet, and now its coming for our games. While the chatbot can't exactly play “I spy” with you — it can come up with a fiendishly difficult new puzzle game that could finally knock Wordle away from your phone screen.

One user has now created a website for possibly the first ever ChatGPT-created game. The Puzzled Penguin Substack page shows the game, called “Sumplete," created by user Daniel Tait, and you can play it now. 

Tait got the AI to generate the game using the prompt: “can you invent a logic puzzle similar to Sudoku that doesn’t currently exist” and the result is surprisingly competent, if slightly uninspired. What’s more, Tait even got ChatGPT to create a playable version using HTML and Javascript. 

While Sumplete doesn’t exactly offer Red Dead Redemption 2 levels of gameplay, it is a surprisingly playable twist on Sudoku and shows AI could one day be a genuine tool for game developers. 

Playing games with ChatGPT (spoiler: it cheats)

Wordle was created out of love as a simple word game for its creator’s significant other to enjoy. 

I tried to beat it using cold, emotionless AI. 

First off, I wanted to see what we were working with. So I challenged the new Bing with ChatGPT to play a variety of games with me. The results were mixed.

I asked it to play Wordle and it claimed after my first guess the word did not contain the letter “C." This wasn't right because the word turned out to be “Coach."

Similarly, I triumphantly defeated the AI at tic-tac-toe but it just stuck its fingers in its ears and carried on playing. 

Making my own game with ChatGPT

Even with its brand-new creative tone option, Bing’s responses were lacking in creativity when asked to invent games. So I moved to OpenAI’s own version of ChatGPT and had more luck. 

Even using the same prompt as Daniel Tait, I was given a different game. The AI created a Sudoku clone called "Hexa-words" which it described as follows: 

“Hexa-words is a logic puzzle played on a 6x6 grid, where the objective is to fill every cell with a letter from A to F, such that each row and column contains all six letters exactly once. Additionally, there are six shaded cells in the grid that form a hexagon shape. These cells must contain a six-letter word, with each letter coming from the corresponding row or column. The same letter cannot be used twice within a single word, and no two words may overlap in more than one letter.”

This is a novel idea. However, the example it generated for me was flawed. The six-letter word it generated in a hexagon was “FACEBD," which is not a real word.

It had similar issues when asked to create word-based games. If it didn’t just flat-out replicate Wordle, it again showed errors. It created an anagram-based game, giving me the prompt “KNOWLEDGEBANK” with the idea to be to find the longest possible word from the prompt, when I asked for the answer it replied “Walkedon," again not a word in the English language. After correcting it, the AI admitted it had made a mistake and said the largest anagram possible was in fact “Knowledge.” Hardly a challenge.

My best results came when asking the AI to create a game based on a word search. It came up with “Around the world” a word search based around the countries of the world, that when solved created a message, “PACK YOUR BAGS AND EXPLORE”. This was fine, but it is not going to challenge the genius of Wordle or even Sumplete. It seems the likes of Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo are safe for now. 

More from Tom's Guide

• ChatGPT explained: what is it and why is it important?
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Wordle is a behemoth of a daily game, loved by millions and likely frustrating them as well. And to preserve Worldle streaks when the going gets tough, some players opt to cheat. 

Data from the word puzzles solving website Unscramblerer has given us insight into which American states and which countries cheat the most. Step forward, Maine and Ireland. 

New England’s easternmost state is apparently the biggest searcher of “Wordle answer" and "Wordle today” in Unscramblerer, which serves up answers to online world puzzles. That could leave Maine residents feeling as red-faced as their famed lobster. 

The second most active state on the Wordle cheating front is Vermont. Clearly, the denizens of a place that makes some great cheddar like to cheese their Wordle streaks.

Vermont’s neighbor Massachusetts takes the third spot on the cheater’s list. We’d have expected more for the state that's home to Harvard University. 

But perhaps there’s something in the water or Atlantic air that has residents of New England looking for the easy route to Wordle success, especially as both New Hampshire and Rhode Island take the 4th and 5th cheating positions respectively.

Leading the states that cheat the least is Nevada. As the home of Las Vegas, perhaps Nevadans are just as happy to gamble with Worlde attempts as they are on the roulette table. 

Louisiana holds the second spot for the least cheaty American state; maybe Southern hospitality also extends to not cheating to have a bigger Wordle streak than your guests.  

As the Lone Star state, it’s not a huge surprise that Texans are on the straight and narrow when it comes to Wordle fair play; it takes the 3rd spot, followed by its neighbor New Mexico in 4th. 

And the 5th least Wordle-cheating state is Mississippi. Maybe they get a lot of practice trying to spell "Mississippi."

These countries cheat the most at Wordle

While the U.S. looks like it has its fair share of Wordle cheaters, it’s actually Ireland that has the most Wordle foul play. 

The home of Hobbiton and a lot of sheep, New Zealand, is the second biggest Wordle cheat. And then, to this writer's shame, the United Kingdom takes the third spot in the Wordle cheat rankings; we basically invented the English language and now seemingly can’t use it well enough to cheat less than the U.S., which sits in the 4th spot. 

Australia is the fifth biggest Wordle cheat. With fantastic beaches, scuba diving, and a whole lot of deadly creatures, perhaps Aussies feel they don’t have time to waste figuring out a tricky Wordle answer and pop over to Unscramblerer.  

Wordle cheating is on the decline 

They often say cheaters never prosper. And to a certain extent, cheating in Wordle is basically cheating yourself out of a challenge; I won’t judge as I make heavy use of the Mimic Tear in Elden Ring (look it up). 

But for those who like fair play, the good news, according to Unscramblerer, is Wordle cheating is on the decline this year. 

"The Wordle community has matured over the last year. Word puzzles are all about the challenge of solving and unscrambling. Cheating at Wordle is in decline. People no longer want to know the answer to today's Wordle,” explained a Unscramblerer spokesperson.  “Getting a direct answer ruins the fun of the game. Whereas a hint still allows you to solve the word puzzle yourself. Hints seem to be the perfect answer to getting stuck at solving Wordle."

If you’re looking for hints, then Tom’s Guide has you covered. Our what is today’s Wordle answer article will ultimately give you the answer to the day’s Wordle and those that preceded it, but we give you plenty of hints beforehand. And if you want some more guidance, check out our guide on the best Wordle start words. 

For those of us who found uncovering today’s Wordle answer challenging enough, Quordle is the stuff of nightmares. Yes, you get nine attempts to Wordle’s six, but you’re also trying to hunt down four words simultaneously.

But it has a fandom that has outlived the majority of the flash-in-the-pan Wordle alternatives, and that has earned creator Freddie Meyer a payday. The game has been acquired by dictionary and reference book maker Merriam-Webster for an undisclosed fee.

If you tap www.quordle.com into your browser, you’ll be redirected to a page on the Merriam-Webster site, which is the new home of the game. Otherwise — barring a privacy options pop-up that’ll appear for first-time users — it’s business as usual, with just a Merriam-Webster logo next to the familiar Quordle one. You can just pop in today’s Quordle answers as per usual, and continue building up your stats.

That doesn’t mean the game will remain static forever, however. If you tap into the help section of the game, you’ll see a quick message from Meyer expressing his delight at the Merriam-Webster acquisition, and promising “new features and fun to come”. 

No paywall

Merriam-Webster is owned by Encylopedia Britannica, and when big companies snap up smaller ones, there’s always a fear that things will fundamentally change, but early signs are promising that Quordle diehards have little to worry about, at least in the short term.

In an interview with our sister site, TechRadar, Merriam-Webster President Gregory Barlow assured fans that there are no plans to put the game behind a paywall. 

“I don’t have any changes planned,” he told the site. “We do have some new features and maybe some new game types coming, but the core game that people play every day, I would not expect it to change.”

While not quite the cultural phenomenon of Wordle — which has been promoted by everyone from Jimmy Fallon to the US Vice President — Quordle will still bring a lot of traffic to Merriam-Webster’s games section.  According to Barlow, 29.7 million players have attempted 410 million puzzles in the last six months, which could mimic the “tens of millions of new users” that the New York Times’ games section acquired with the purchase of Wordle.

Wordle and Quordle aren’t the only online guessing games to be snapped up by bigger online brands in the last year. Last July, Heardle — the music identification game — was purchased by streaming giant Spotify for an undisclosed amount. 

Hopefully Waffle — my personal favorite of the Wordle-likes out there — isn’t feeling too left out. 

I’m an avid fan of Wordle. While I was late to the game (literally), I’ve been playing it everyday for more than a year now. Through it, myself and my mom chat more than ever before — we literally text our results to each other every morning, so it’s almost become as much a ritual as a daily game. And as I’m sure many of you know, with daily playing comes the inevitable build-up of the winning streak. The higher it gets, the more we sweat when we reach 5 or even 6 guesses. 

Most will have lost one game or another, perhaps due to an annoying word with just too many options, or simply because it’s something we’ve never heard of before. But, in either case, both myself and my mom, will (with teeth gritted) gracefully accept defeat as well as the score reset — no peeking at today’s Wordle answer for us. But, to my horror, my impressive streak of 180 recently reset to zero for no reason at all — I didn’t lose a game, I didn’t miss a day. Here’s what happened.

Why did my Wordle streak reset? 

I recently booked myself a well-deserved holiday from the UK to Florida. And while I planned to be immersed in the sun and theme parks, of course I intended to continue playing Wordle everyday with the best Wordle start words. On the day of the flight, I played as usual before we took off — no issues there — my streak had just reached 180 so I was looking forward to hitting the 200 milestone. However, when I woke up in my hotel the next morning, fresh and ready for my vacation, to my horror my streak was gone and had reset to zero. 

What had happened here? I hadn’t missed a day and I hadn’t played between 7 p.m. and midnight Florida-time, which would have been after midnight back in the UK. I was disappointed to say the least. I continued playing daily and built up another streak of 14 days by the time I flew back to the UK. Strangely it didn’t reset itself coming back, only flying out, so the confusion mounted up.

After returning, I did some research into the problem. It turns out that when it comes to long-distance travelling, Wordle unfortunately has a tendency to sometimes reset itself, reducing any winning streak back down to zero. That’s the case even if you continue to play daily and keep winning. Whether or not this relates to the difference in time zones is difficult to say — especially since I still played the game everyday with plenty of time to spare in both time zones. But, in any case, it’s something every Wordle-enthusiast who plans to travel should be aware of. 

Can you get your Wordle streak back? 

To get my streak back, in accordance with MUO, I tried switching off the ‘Set Automatically’ option in my Date and Time settings, and then resetting the date on my phone to the day my streak vanished. I then had to re-complete that day’s Wordle before switching back to the current date. To my dismay this didn’t solve the problem — in fact, I only lost the 14 day streak I had built up in the interim. Unfortunately it seems that my streak is lost for good. 

Preventing this from happening in the future isn’t exactly clarified, but it should be possible because Wordle just fixed its biggest flaw. Logically, by creating a New York Times account, your streak should be saved in these instances. Or if you want to take extreme precautions, you could alternatively have someone back home complete the daily Wordles in the interim using the same account. If your Wordle streak means a lot to you, these may be worth exploring. Personally, I will continue playing Wordle, but this is certainly something the game should look to fix. 

Wordle is getting a major rules shakeup for the first time since the New York Times acquired it back in January 2022.

As first reported by Polygon, the New York Times announced in a blog post that rule changes are coming to the popular word game. These changes will affect both the pool of correct answers as well as what words can be used in guesses. The Times also announced the arrival of its first dedicated Wordle editor, who will oversee these changes. 

Wordle update: What changes are coming? 

Tracy Bennet, a former associate puzzle editor for the New York Times, will now be in charge of curating the word list and testing Wordle. The first change coming — no more plural words. At least, there won’t be any solutions that are plural words ending in “es” or “s.” Plural worlds such as “Geese” or “Fungi” will still be potential solutions. However, you can still use these plural words as guesses to eliminate letters.

The other big change announced by the Times is that they will be curating the potential solution list going forward. Answers will still come from the same basic dictionary of words, but the Times will curate this list to ensure that the game is, “fun, accessible, lively and varied.” 

However, the dictionary of English words that are valid guesses will be uncurated and will be significantly larger than the potential solutions list. So be careful with your guesses and make sure to check out our guide on how to solve the daily Wordle answer. We also have guides on everything you need to know to play Wordle and a guide to the best Wordle start words.

The best Wordle start words are the key to beating the game and avoiding the need to search for today's Wordle hint.

Without a good start word, your streak is at risk — and nobody wants to lose all that hard Wordle work. In fact, I lost my Wordle streak without losing or missing a game, which is pretty frustrating. Plus, even if you're a bit of a Wordle expert by now, having a great start word will help you turn 4/6s into 3/6s (possibly even 2/6s). Even the NYT's brilliant WordleBot tool — sadly now behind a paywall — recognizes the importance of a good start word.

I've written before about how I've played every Wordle so far and lost only once, and No. 1 on my list of tips is to use a good starting word. So that's what I'll discuss here. Read on and I'll explain what the best Wordle start words are, the math behind them and what alternatives to try.

Most common letters

• Google research shows that the most common letters in English words are E, T and A, with J, Q and Z as least common
• That's for published English works on Google Books, not Wordle specifically
• We reviewed all of the Wordle solutions and found the 10 most common letters, which does include E, T and A

Before we dive into the list of the words, let’s break down the science behind it.

You don’t have to be a genius to realize that it's a good idea to use letters that occur more frequently in English. For example, you're more likely to find an “A” in the word than a “Z.”

In a research paper on English Letter Frequency Counts, Peter Norvig, director of research at Google, analyzed the data from Google Books to put together a list of most commonly used letters in the English language. His findings concluded that “E”, “T” and “A” were the top three, while “J”, “Q” and “Z” were the least common.

However, that list is based on words in general, rather than Wordle answers — so to really find out which letters feature most frequently in the game, you'd need to analyze them all.

Fortunately, that's easy to do. Because Wordle's answers are all freely available in the website's HTML code, it's pretty simple to download them, then do a bit of number crunching. This is the list of most frequently used letters that you get when you do that:

• E
• A
• R
• O
• T
• L
• I
• S
• N
• C

Note that the list above is based on correct Wordle answers, rather than Wordle words; the game accepts some 15,000-plus words as guesses, but only 2,309 are valid solutions.

That's interesting, then, but it's just the appetizer for the best Wordle start word main course to follow…

Best Wordle start words

• SOARE, ROATE and RAISE are the best starting words, based on an analysis of Wordle's 12,972 possible guesses

Several people have attempted to use math to determine the best Wordle start words.

One of them was programmer and game designer Tyler Glaiel, who assigned each letter in Wordle's 12,972 possible guesses a score of 0, 1 or 2, based on whether it is included in one of the 2,309 answers or not, and whether it is in the right place.

After checking all 12,972 words, the algorithm determined that the best starting options are:

• SOARE
• ROATE
• RAISE

For reasons that are too complex to go into here, Glaiel concludes that ROATE is the best Wordle start word if you want to rule out possible answers as quickly as possible.

However, because ROATE doesn't actually feature in Wordle's possible answers list itself, you'll never get a 1/6 with it. For that reason, Glaiel recommends starting with RAISE.

Programmer Bertrand Fan took a similar approach and unsurprisingly came up with a very similar list:

• SOARE
• SAREE
• SEARE
• STARE
• ROATE

Given that the top three don't feature in Wordle's possible answers list, that would make STARE the statistically best Wordle start word, based on Fan's analysis at least.

Coincidentally, Stare is the word independently picked by some of the Tom's Guide team months ago, without having seen that research, so that's the one we'd go for.

That decision was instead based on common sense; after all, S is the most common first letter among Wordle answers, A is the most common third letter and E the most common fifth letter. T and R, meanwhile, are the two most common consonants overall in the game.

So there you have it — for the Tom's Guide team at least, the best Wordle start word is STARE.

Though, a pair of MIT researchers have their own pick: SALET (a light medieval helmet). That also gives you five of the top 10 letters, but we're not as keen on it as STARE — as R is the third-most-used letter, and L is the sixth-most-used. A good alternate for sure.

The best Wordle start word according to WordleBot

• The New York Times' WordleBot tool also analyses what could make a good Wordle solution
• WordleBot's top starting word picks are SLATE, TRACE and CARTE

The NYT's excellent WordleBot tool has its own list of the best Wordle start words — and it should know, given it's made by the people who now run Wordle.

Originally, the math behind it was based on how many of Wordle's 2,309 solutions are left, on average, after you play it, plus the average number of steps needed to solve it and a couple of other metrics.

However, the WordleBot was updated in August 2022; it no longer knows the original solutions, but instead , "it assigns roughly 3,150 relatively common English words a probability of being a Wordle solution, based on what it has observed about the words that have been solutions so far," according to the New York Times.

"We then assign each of roughly 3,150 words a probability of being a solution, based in part on word frequency in New York Times archives dating to 2000 and on what the bot has observed about the words that have been solutions so far."

As a result of those changes, WordleBot now considers SLATE to be the best opening word, followed closely by LEAST (when playing in Hard mode).

A while back, the best starting word was CRANE, which goes to show how the words that have been used has changed the metrics. Another excellent starting word, according to the Times, is DEALT.

Here are some of WordleBot's favorite starting words:

• SLATE (99)
• TRACE (99)
• CARTE (99)
• SLANT (99)
• CRATE (98)
• CRANE (98)
• LEAST (98)
• CARET (98)
• STALE (98)
  

Should your Wordle start word have lots of vowels?

• Almost every Wordle answer has a vowel, so choose a starting word with A, E, I, O or U is a good bet
• Avoid ADIEU as it's not a Wordle solution, but consider AUDIO or CANOE

Some people swear by playing the likes of ADIEU, AUDIO, ABOUT, CANOE or OUIJA, as they let you use up three or four vowels at the start.

This can be a good alternative approach, as (almost) every Wordle answer has at least one vowel so it makes sense to identify it as soon as possible. But I wouldn't personally go down that route. ADIEU is not a Wordle answer, so you'll never get a 1/6 with that. AUDIO is decent, but it doesn't contain an E — which is not just the most common vowel but also the most common letter in the game. Ditto ABOUT.

CANOE isn't bad, but C and N are nowhere near as common as S, T or R when it comes to consonants, so what you gain in one aspect you lose in the other. And OUIJA is just a silly suggestion: it doesn't have an E but it does have a J, which is the second least likely letter to feature in the game at all.

However, vowels are very important in the game in general, so consider them strongly when thinking of a second word. Speaking of which…

Best Wordle second words

• If your starting word fails, choose another from the list that doesn't include the same letters
• If you start with STARE, move onto something like COULD

Of course sometimes even a great start word won't earn you any yellow or green results. If that happens, you'll need a good second word.

Which you choose will obviously depend on what your first word was, as you won't want to repeat any letters you've already used. But if I assume you're following this advice (you're going to do so, right) and using STARE as your Wordle start word, I'd recommend PHONY, COULD or DOING as good second options.

PHONY is a statistically better option as a second word, because Y is one of the most frequent fifth letters. However, COULD and DOING both use two vowels, and playing your vowels early is always a good strategy, as described above.

Of course, starting words can only take you so far. There's a lot more you can learning about Wordle simply by using math, and I've done just that. In fact, I analyzed every Wordle answer to look for patterns — here's what I found.

I've also put together a list of the best Wordle alternatives in case the original game proves either too easy or too difficult for your taste. And if you ever need a Wordle hint, just be sure to bookmark our page for your daily dose.

Read next: Your Wordle streak is about to get a multi-device boost — here's how to get it set up

Wordle has taken the world by storm over the past year, to the point where the New York Times was willing to pay seven figures for the game. Now the paper seems to be cashing in on that investment with the launch of the Wordle board game.

That’s right. Wordle is leaping from the internet into the real world, in the form of a competitive party game. Aptly named “Wordle: The Party Game," and developed by Hasbro, it’ll go on sale this October for $19.99.

Each game of real-life Wordle has a single player picking a secret word, and the rest of the group have to guess what it is. A bit like Pictionary, but with five-letter words rather than poorly-scrawled drawings.

As is the case with the online Wordle, players get six attempts to guess the correct word. You then score points based on how many tries it took, and the fewer the tries the fewer the points. The winner is the person who ends the game with the smallest number.

The game comes with three Wordle game boards, a separate board for the secret word, dry-erase markers alongside a collection of green and yellow tiles — matching the ones in the online version.

You can preorder Wordle: The Party Game now

Wordle: The Party Game is already available to pre-order from Amazon, Target and Hasbro itself. So far pre-orders only appear to be open in the U.S., so any U.K. readers will have to sit tight for now. 

Given Wordle’s insane popularity, we can imagine this is going to sell out before launch. So you might want to order your own copy pronto, especially if you want one in time for the holidays.

Not only would Wordle: The Party Game make a great holiday gift, it would make a great activity for any get-togethers with friends or family. It’s also not quite as antagonistic as some board games, especially Monopoly, so shouldn’t prompt any holiday arguments.

But if this is your plan it’s worth studying up on the best Wordle start words, and make sure you’re in the best position to win.

Any devoted Wordle player will tell you the importance of the streak. The streak shows how good (or bad) a Wordle player you are, but it’s suffered from one serious problem: your streaks are device specific and don’t follow you around. Thankfully that’s changing.

Wordle owners, The New York Times, are now letting you sync your game stats across devices. All you need is a New York Times account — and they’re free to create if you don’t have one already.

The whole process takes a few minutes at most, and can be done before or after you have a go at today’s Wordle answer. Here’s how to sync your Wordle streak across devices.

How to save a Wordle streak across devices

1. Head to the New York Times Wordle website on a device of your choice

 2. Play today’s game, or click the bar graph button in the top right corner 

3.  Underneath your stats you’ll see the option to link your stats. Click the big Log in or create a free account button 

4.  Follow the steps on screen. Your options are to sign up with your existing Google, Facebook or Apple accounts, or to create a new profile from scratch. That last choice needs your email and a password, but no other personal data. 

5. This will now sync your Wordle stats to your NYT profile, and if you log in on a different device (or browser) you’ll see your streak and stats have all been carried over. 

This feature has only started rolling out today (July 13), and doesn’t seem to be available for everyone. For example, I’ve been able to sync Wordle to my own NYT account on Chrome (Windows and Android), but don’t have that option in Safari (iOS), Microsoft Edge. or even Chrome on the iPhone. 

So if you don’t see the option on the Wordle device of your choice, you’re just going to have to be patient. And we recommend you be patient, because the syncing process is permanent and you don’t want to accidentally wipe out your streak in the process.

It’s not clear how long the rollout will take, but we’re hoping this wait will be a short one. The original announcement was made yesterday afternoon, and the fact some people can already sync their stats means it shouldn’t be long before everyone can.

If you’re struggling to keep up your Wordle streak then we have some resources for you. Our guide to the best Wordle start words can help you preserve that streak, and we have essential Wordle tips and tricks from Tom’s Guide’s Wordle wizard Marc McLaren. 

But, if all else fails, we do post the latest Wordle answer every day, along with hints that might help you figure it out for yourself. Because it’s not really cheating if you don’t get given the answer. 

On June 19, 2021 a new game was born with absolutely zero fanfare. Wordle, named after its creator Josh Wardle, didn't go public on the internet until October and didn't gather any real attention until January 2022 — but once people picked up on it, it became the viral sensation of the year.

A year later, Wordle is in a very different place. It's now owned by the New York Times, and though we don't know exactly how many people play it daily, it's probably in the millions. It's also spawned an entire industry of Wordle clones and alternatives, some of which are almost as essential as the original. And every day, players go in search of a Wordle hint that'll help them keep going.

It's easy to see why; Wordle is a brilliant antidote to an increasingly difficult year decade, offering one slightly challenging puzzle a day with no time limit beyond the need to complete it by midnight, simple gameplay mechanics and an in-built sharing mechanism that made it a truly social experience.

The game is scheduled to run until sometime in October 2027, when the last of its 2,308 puzzles will be used, although it's possible the NYT will extend the word list before then. However, if it wants to keep all those millions of fans playing daily, Wordle may need to work hard for their attention; today's viral sensation is tomorrow's Pokémon Go. 

So, what can Wordle do in its second year to ensure it remains popular? I have some ideas.

1. Add cross-device play

My Wordle streak is currently 53, but it's also currently 165. This annoys me greatly, and it all stems from the fact that Wordle isn't currently clever enough to handle anyone playing on multiple devices.

Admittedly, I may not be a typical Wordler: I usually complete the game first on my phone, then switch to my laptop and play it again so I can take screenshots and write my Wordle hint column for Tom's Guide. But on a couple of occasions, I've skipped the phone part and gone straight to the laptop, and as a result my phone streak and stats are different from those on my laptop.

Fortunately, I've played every day on the laptop, so my full streak is captured — but if I'd forgotten a game there too, or had a day off work sometime, it would be an unmitigated disaster. And it will also be an issue if and when I replace my wonderful Google Pixel 6 with another phone — because Wordle stats can't officially be transferred across devices.

This surely can't be that difficult to fix. Wordle is now part of NYT Games, and NYT has a login system so you can use WordleBot and play other games, such as Spelling Bee. Presumably it could implement a free tier, so you could still log in on multiple devices and know that your streak was always safe. 

2. Create an official Wordle archive

As I've detailed in the past, I've played every Wordle so far and lost only once. And the reason I was able to do so is that I had access to the now sadly defunct Wordle Archive. In fact, there was more than one such site that allowed you to play previous Wordles, but the NYT unceremoniously shut them all down soon after it purchased the game in February.

On the one hand, I can see why: it spent a lot of money on Wordle, reportedly a low-seven-figure sum, and it had to protect its IP. But such a move would only make sense if it created its own official Archive instead, and thus far there's no sign of it doing so.

My prediction is that it will do this at some future point, and will place it firmly behind a paywall. This would be annoying, but still better than nothing.

3. Make WordleBot (partly) free again

WordleBot was a brilliant addition to the Wordle experience, giving players post-game analysis of the most recent puzzle, together with strategy tips and insight into things like the best Wordle start word. It was free for the first couple of months of its life, but was placed behind the NYT paywall earlier this month.

As I said above, it's understandable that the NYT wants to claw back some of the money it spent on the game, but did it really have to go the whole hog and put it all behind a paywall? For instance, one of the best things about WordleBot is that it tells you what the average score across the game is for everyone who's played it so far that day. This is a great stat to know and really adds to the overall sense of community around Wordle. It's fair enough that the more detailed analysis might go paid-only, but couldn't it make the first screen free-to-view at least?

4. Improve the in-game stats screen

Similarly, Wordle's stats page is clean, concise and effective, giving you a breakdown of how many 2s, 3s, 4s etc you've got and what your current streak is, but it could go further.

Sure, many people don't want detailed stats, but they could be hidden in a pop-up or something. For instance, I'd like to know what my overall average is at a glance, but this currently requires a calculator to work out (it's 3.76, since you ask). I'd also like to know how that compares to everyone else who plays the game.

This would be a minor change, but also an easy addition to make.

5. Create a better Hard Mode

Wordle's Hard Mode, as I've made clear a couple of times, doesn't really do it for me. That's not because I'm scared of it (though I don't deny that I'm merely an average player), but simply because it changes the gameplay in what I consider to be a negative way.

As it stands, Hard Mode works by forcing you to play letters that are already green or yellow in subsequent guesses. This means you can't use a 'throwaway' guess to narrow things down for a difficult word. In that sense, it does indeed make the game harder. But mainly it just makes it more about luck. 

To take an example such as the infamous 'WATCH' game (#265, above) I was able to play PLUMB on the third guess, ruling out PATCH, LATCH, MATCH and BATCH in one go. That's strategy. On Hard Mode I'd have had to blindly guess in the hope I picked the right word; that's luck.

By all means leave Hard Mode as it is, but how about introducing a new Extra-Hard Mode, which gives you a time limit to complete the game? Or one that reduces your guesses to five? Or that always keeps one letter hidden? There are, I'm sure, plenty of other options that would still give everyone the same word to find.

So there you go, five ways the NYT could improve Wordle without destroying what made it so special. But whatever happens, I'll definitely keep playing daily and giving you a Wordle hint so you can do the same. Well, unless I lose my streak, maybe, and then we'll see.

One of the great things about the world's favorite new word game Wordle is that you can only play once each day, thus keeping the experience fresh. (You can, however, now play the Wordle archives.) But that's also one of the worst things about Wordle: you therefore have to wait a whole day for your next fix.

One solution is to play another word game while that Wordle timer counts down, but where to start? After all, there are approximately 70 bazillion Wordle clones and alternatives out there now.

As a committed Wordle addict, I've played almost all of them and can tell you which ones are worthy of your time. So read on for my list of the best Wordle alternatives and clones, including a selection of non-Wordle-style games that also involve solving word puzzles.

Of course you'll still want to keep playing Wordle too, so don't forget to read my guide to the best Wordle start words and check out today's Wordle answer if you happen to have missed one.

You might also find some Wordle tips and tricks to be helpful — I’ve played every Wordle so far and lost only once, so I've got plenty to share.

The best Wordle alternatives

Wordle clones

Quordle (Free)

A Wordle alternative for those who find the original too easy, Quordle has you try to guess four words at the same time, and with only three more chances to succeed. As with Wordle, yellow squares indicate the correct letter in the wrong place, and green squares mean you have the right letter in the right spot. However, you do get three more chances per round. Like Wordle, Quordle is free to play and only has one game per day, but there is also a practice mode.

Play Quordle online

Octordle (Free)

Guess what? Octordle is like Wordle but eight times harder (or like Quordle but twice as hard). Here you get 13 guesses to find the eight words, which makes for some interesting strategy decisions. Do you try to complete them one by one from the start? Or use as many letters as possible? Or try to guess words that will tell you something about more than one answer? That's up to you.

Play Octordle online

Kilordle (Free)

The logical extension of all this? Kilordle, in which you play 1,000 games of Wordle at once. Yes, really. Except not quite, because you don't really play them all at the same time as you do in Quordle or Octordle — that would be stupid. Instead, you guess your five-letter word and Kilordle will turn any letter in the right place in any of the words green. But you needn't guess the specific word — you just have to turn all five letters green at some point.

Example: the answer to one of the 1,000 puzzles is SPOIL and you currently have SPOI- but not the L. In order to clear that puzzle, you could indeed play SPOIL — but if you play QUELL you'd still solve it, because that would give you a green L in the fifth spot. The challenge here isn't so much to guess all 1,000 words, but rather to solve them all in the fewest possible guesses. I've heard of someone doing it in 43 — but my own 'record' is 105. Good luck with this one!

Play Kilordle online

Heardle (Free)

Heardle is like Wordle for pop music — and if that's not a compelling pitch then we don't know what it is. But sensibly, rather than just make you guess music-related five-letter words such as artists and songs, Heardle plays you the first few seconds of a pop song then tasks you with identifying it. That's harder than you might imagine — you only get one second on your first guess, and two on your second, although the clips do get longer as you play.

The featured tunes come from Soundcloud and are "the most streamed songs in the past decade," so chances are you'll recognize many of them. It's a great twist on the Wordle formula and well worth checking out.

Play Heardle online

Redactle (Free)

If you thought Wordle was hard then just wait til you try Redactle — it might take you upwards of 100 guesses to solve it! Less a Wordle clone and more an entirely unconnected game that has a similar sounding name and once-a-day restriction, it's nonetheless included here because of how good it is.

Your challenge is to uncover a random Wikipedia page by guessing words that might feature on it. Uncover enough and you should be able to work out what the subject is and complete the puzzle before you go mad through trying. It's very tough, strangely addictive and well worth checking out.

Play Redactle online

Framed (Free)

If you spend more money on cinema trips than food and consider the Oscars to be the greatest night of the year, then Framed could be the Wordle clone for you.

This new game tasks you with guessing a movie based on six stills; each incorrect guess reveals a new one and progressively gives the game away. There's just one game each day (of course) and it's entirely free to play via the Framed website.

Play Framed online

Hurdle (Free)

Whereas Quordle and Octordle make you play multiple Wordle puzzles at once, Hurdle tasks you with playing five in a row. The twist here is that the answer to one becomes the start word to the next. That's true of the first four at least, but the fifth go is where it gets really tough: all four previous answers are placed in the grid, leaving you just two guesses to find the final solution. It's another neat twist on the original, albeit a fairly stressful one!

Play Hurdle online

Waffle (Free)

While it's clearly inspired by Wordle, the crossword-like Waffle is a game that can almost stand on its own. You start with a grid of letters in the right and wrong positions, and it's up to you to get them into the right places — with just 15 moves to pull off the task. Each Waffle puzzle is solvable in 10 moves, and the closer you get to that magic number, the more stars you can earn. It's that twist in particular that will keep you coming back for more, as you try to improve upon your performance.

Play Waffle online

Squabble (Free)

Wordle is a relaxing experience — albeit a frustrating one sometimes. Squabble is anything but relaxing — and still frequently frustrating! Essentially, it's a competitive version of Wordle that pitches you against either strangers or friends. You deal damage with each correct guess, and take damage for a wrong guess. Oh, and there's a timer that also deals damage for each second — so you'll need to act quickly.

Games play out in a frantic, frenzied fashion and it's superb fun, if incredibly stressful at times.

Play Squabble online

Worldle (Free)

If you fancy yourself as something of a geography expert, then look no further than Worldle. Its name may only be one letter away from Wordle, but this is a very different game that tests you to identify a country from its silhouette alone.

After each guess, you're told how close your choice is geographically to the target country, and in which direction it lies. For instance, if you guess Denmark and the answer is Czechia, you'll be told it's 824km away and in a south-east direction. You have five goes to get it correct, and can play just once a day (of course). Just be warned — you might need some help to find today's Worldle answer.

Play Worldle online

Who Are Ya? (Free)

Love the beautiful game? Then the soccer-themed Who Are Ya? is the Wordle clone you've been waiting for. This surprisingly tough online game challenges you to identify a current professional footballer using a limited number of clues.

Like the original, you get a set number of attempts (eight in this case), with each one revealing some information about what your guess has in common with the target player. For instance, if you guessed Messi and the answer was Neymar it would tell you that they are a different nationality and age, but play at the same club in the same league and are both forwards. It's surprisingly tricky, but well worth a go if you're a soccer fan.

Play Who Are Ya? online

Adverswordle (Free)

Finally, a chance to give that AI quizmaster a taste of its own medicine. In Adverswordle, instead of having to solve the puzzle, you're the one coming up with the word for an AI opponent to guess. The point isn't to stump the AI — with the entire dictionary loaded into its virtual brain, that task might prove impossible — but to make it take as many guesses as possible. Game play is a lot like Wordle itself, where you change the tiles green or yellow depending on the quality of the guess. Like Wordle, you can play Adverswordle once a day, making this alternative feel more like the genuine article.

Play Adverswordle online

Absurdle (Free)

If you love the idea of Wordle but find it a bit easy (maybe you're really brainy), give Absurdle a try instead. It's an unashamed clone that challenges you to guess a five-letter word, but the difference here is that the target word changes as you play. Essentially, you're competing against a malevolent AI which uses your guesses to narrow down the possible answers, discounting anything that contains a letter you've used. It requires an entirely different strategy and is well worth a look.

Play Absurdle online

SWordle (Free)

You'll need the Force to be with you to master SWordle, because this Wordle clone is a Star Wars-themed masterclass in frustration.

The rules are essentially the same as those for the original game, but you can also use numbers for droid-related reasons. And there are a few nice touches, such as the Millennium Falcon-shaped delete button.

You'd expect it to be easier than the original, given the reduced number of possible solutions, but in reality it's tougher than a Sarlacc, with some pretty obscure answers making for a tricky game. But if you're a Star Wars megafan, this is the Wordle clone for you.

Play SWordle online

Hello Wordl (Free)

Part of Wordle’s appeal (for me at least) is that you can only play it once a day. But if you’re craving a more regular fix, Hello Wordl is essentially exactly the same game except that you can play it as often as you like. Oh, and you can also choose to solve puzzles with anything between 4 and 11 letters, rather than the 5 in the original game. In one sense it loses some of the real thing's appeal, but it's free and is certainly a good way to get in some practice.

Play Hello Wordl online

Mathler (Free)

Swap Wordle's letters for numbers and you get Mathler — an unashamed clone of everyone's favorite word game that instead tests your math skills. The mechanics are almost identical, from the design to the way you share results on social media to the fact that it's free to play and without adverts. But unlike Wordle, you're given the answer up front and instead have to work out what equation leads to it. It's tricky, but good fun if you're good with figures.

Play Mathler online

5-Letter Classic (free)

5-Letter Classic used to be Wordle Unlimited, but now has a new home and name, presumably due to NYT complaints. It's essentially Wordle, but you can play as many games per day as you like. There's also a 6-letter variant, or you can play 5-Letter Daily, which really is identical to Wordle.

Play 5-Letter Classic

Other word games

Connections

Connections has become another popular New York Times puzzle game (for which you'll need a subscription to play). Each day, you get a grid of 16 words and/or phrases, and have to find four groups of four that relate to each other. Like most puzzles, some days are more difficult than others, and oftentimes, what you might thing are the most obvious connections between two or more words are red herrings.

You can only make four mistakes before you lose, which ups the stakes. But, if you're having trouble, you can always check out our daily Connections hints to make sure you keep your streak going.

Play Connections online

SpellTower (Free with in-app purchases)

Take a little Wordl, mix in a little Jenga, and you get SpellTower, an addictive game from mobile gaming great Zach Gage (Flipflip Solitaire, Really Bad Chess, Ridiculous Fishing). The premise is easy enough: build words by tracing your finger around adjacent letter tiles. Strategy, though, comes in when your tower of letters comes crashing down a little with each word you pick out. How many of the words will you find? Will you place on the day's rankings? That's on you. — Henry T. Casey

Download SpellTower: Android / iOS

Kitty Letter (Free)

Almost certainly the only word game that involves detonating (virtual) cats, Kitty Letter stems from the inspired mind of Matthew Inman (aka The Oatmeal). If you’ve ever played his superb card game Exploding Kittens, you’ll know what to expect: a clever concept intertwined with very funny gags.

The objective is to form as many words as you can from a given set of letters while your opponent does the same; the twist is that your words are carried by exploding kittens who gradually overwhelm your opponent’s defenses if your word is longer. There’s a one-player mode with a free Oatmeal comic, plus online multiplayer against friends or strangers, and it’s entirely free to play and free of ads.

Download Kitty Letter: Android / iOS

Letterpress (Free with IAP)

Half word game, half Risk-style strategy, Letterpress is a deceptively simple thing that draws you in and proves maddeningly addictive. You play against either a bot or another human online, with the objective being to control as much of a 5x5 board as possible by using letters close to the other person's selection. It rewards long words, so you’ll need to bring your mental lexicography game, and there’s a real ebb and flow to it that makes every contest a real challenge. There are ads, but they’re minimal and can be removed for $4.99.

Download LetterPress: Android / iOS

Semantle

Semantle dispatches with the usual guesses based on spelling, and instead has you guessing a word based on semantic similarity. That means how likely a word is to be used in similar contexts.

For every word you guess, Semantle will tell you whether you’re hot or, if you’re outside of the top 1,000 closest words, cold. It will also provide a number informing you of the closeness of the word: 100 indicates the word is identical, so you can tell if you’re moving in the right direction.

The game’s dictionary is based on the 5,000 most popular English language words (with hyphenated and capitalized ones removed) and not all of them are nouns.

Play Semantle online

Spelling Bee (Free with NYTimes digital subscription)

Before Wordle, the New York Times’ Spelling Bee was the primary way wordsmiths would brag about their prowess on Twitter. Each day, Spelling Bee presents you with a hexagon of six letters arrayed around one center letter; it’s up to you to find as many words as possible that use the center letter. There’s only one game per day, but it typically takes longer than Wordle to complete. If you get stuck, there are some handy hints available, which makes it easier — but not too easy — to figure out the remaining words. If you guess all the words, you get a Queen Bee badge, which you can show off to your friends.

You can play for free up to certain point, but you'll need a $39.95/year subscription to all of the games (which includes the NY Times crossword) to complete it. If you want to read the Times online, you’ll have to pony up for an all-access subscription, which costs $325 per year.

Play Spelling Bee online

Typeshift (Free with IAP)

Another game by the makers of SpellTower, Typeshift challenges you to make specific — but unknown — words from a pre-generated selection. Like Wordle, it's a very simple game to pick up: you just swipe letters up and down in the various columns to form words, which turn green if they're correct. But it doesn't take long before the permutations mount up and you'll soon be wracking your brain for all the possible words that could end AS or whatever. Also like Wordle, there's one main puzzle daily, but you can play a selection of others in various sub categories or buy more and get rid of ads for between $0.99 and $3.99.

Download Typeshift: Android / iOS

Strands (free with NYT subscription)

Strands is one of the newer games in the New York Times game app, and it's probably the most forgiving word game on offer. Strands is more of a wordsearch than a spelling game.

Each day, Strands presents you with a letter grid that is themed around one central phrase and several related words. The grid can contain between 5 and 8 clues. There's only one game per day but it might be faster than completing Wordle. If you get stuck finding other words will help fill a hint bar that you can tap that will reveal one of the answers. Doing it twice will help you spell the word if you are having trouble seeing it. Guessing all the words gets you badges.

You can play for free up to certain point, but you'll need a $39.95/year subscription to all of the games (which includes the NY Times crossword) to complete it. If you want to read the Times online, you’ll have to pony up for an all-access subscription, which costs $325 per year.

Play Strands online

If you've not yet found today's Wordle answer then you'll want to refresh your browser before doing so — because otherwise you might get the wrong puzzle.

Yes, Wordle has two answers for game #324 today, due to the New York Times deciding to swap one out in favor of an alternative. However, which one you see may well depend on whether you've refreshed your browser recently.

The NYT explained that the problem was caused when it decided to remove the original solution because it "seems closely connected to a major recent news event," before adding that this was "entirely unintentional and a coincidence."

Wordle famously has every answer loaded into the game's source code, which is entirely contained within the webpage itself. Anyone can theoretically dip into the code and see which answer is destined for a given day, and indeed it's what made it possible for me to analyze every Wordle answer in search of patterns.

However, this creates some difficulties for the New York Times, which bought Wordle for a sum in "the low seven figures" in January. As the NYT explains, "because of the current Wordle technology, it can be difficult to change words that have already been loaded into the game."

The NYT says that it switched the answer for as many players as possible, but that the fix would only apply if you had refreshed your browser recently. However, it went on to say that "we know that some people won’t do that and, as a result, will be asked to solve the outdated puzzle."

Spoilers for game #324 follow, so only read on if you've already played.

Why did Wordle change the answer?

The NYT's editor's letter explains that "At New York Times Games, we take our role seriously as a place to entertain and escape, and we want Wordle to remain distinct from the news." 

As a result, it made the decision to swap the original answer — FETUS — for the new one (which we won't reveal here). The issue of abortion has been in the news since last week, due to reports that the U.S. Supreme Court is about to announce a decision repealing Roe v. Wade, the precedent that provides federal protections for abortion.

Nor is this the first time this has happened, with the NYT previously removing several answers it said were either obscure or "potentially insensitive," including some with British spellings.

The switch has, understandably, caused some confusion on Twitter, where many players go to share their answers. Multiple people posted that they'd received different solutions to a family member or friend, and given that part of the fun in Wordle is beating your nearest and dearest, that's frustrating.

The NYT's WordleBot tool, which analyzes games and gives you advice about how best to play, also appears to have struggled with the change. As of the time of writing, it is not providing its usual data, for instance telling users what the average score for the game is or how it would have solved the puzzle.

Still, this is a relatively isolated incident and one that can easily be solved by refreshing your browser before you play. Plus, the NYT is working on upgrading the technology behind Wordle, so these kind of situations don't occur again.

"When we acquired Wordle in January, it had been built for a relatively small group of users," it said. "We’re now busy revamping Wordle’s technology so that everyone always receives the same word."

As to which of the two answers is easiest, I can't comment as I only played one — but that certainly caused me a few problems.

There are now more Wordle clones on the planet than people, but fresh takes on the format are still possible and Redactle might just be the best I've played in weeks.

Anyone who enjoys falling down a Wikipedia wormhole will love it because it challenges you to uncover a redacted Wikipedia page, word by word, until you reveal what the subject is. And let me tell you now: it is tough.

Though Redactle gives you common words (such as 'of, 'the' and 'in') up front, you're essentially stumbling around in the dark when you begin. And because you have no idea what the subject matter is — merely that it's one of Wikipedia's 10,000 'vital' articles — it's not even clear what sort of words to guess initially.

As you play a word, it appears on the right of the screen with a tally for how many times it features in the article — if indeed it's in there at all. And of course it's also revealed within the page, so you can start to uncover whole sentences and get clues as to what else to guess. Helpfully, you can also click on a word in the list and be taken to each instance.

I've only played one game so far, but I realized after a while that the key was to narrow down that subject. Go too broad, with words such as 'time', and you won't necessarily uncover much info. But go too specific and you'll probably just be told your word doesn't feature at all. Categories of things seem to be the way to go, and that's what I'll be trying tomorrow in order to improve on my pathetic first attempt, which took me 130 guesses.

The Wordle aspect is pretty tangential, with the only similarities being that it's played online, it's free, and there's just one a day. The latter aspect is important, though, because I've wasted far too much of my life visiting a Wikipedia page about something simple like London and two hours later finding myself reading about the gestation period of sloths or whatever.

Once you've found the answer, you're given some stats including your guess count, your accuracy (how many words you correctly guessed were in the article), and how those figures compare to those of everyone else who's played the game that day. Not well, in my case.

In true Wordle fashion, you also get the chance to share your score, though this merely copies a stats message to the clipboard. No funky green and yellow squares here.

One game was enough for me to know that I'll be playing it daily from now on, and that it will join the list of our best Wordle alternatives alongside the likes of Hurdle, Quordle and Adverswordle. Although I'll still wait until I've found today's Wordle answer to move on to this even more challenging puzzle.

Wordle and its many clones have become the internet’s favorite timewasters in recent months. But if you’re getting a little bored of daily puzzle games and are looking for something new to play, then you need to check out Trivia Quest on Netflix. 

Based on a popular mobile game called Trivia Crack, this interactive animated quiz show gives you a dozen questions to answer in each new episode. Each installment is based on a specific theme including movies, music and geography. And there are also episodes revolving around more original topics, such as famous quotations and even a whole episode dedicated to Netflix's own shows and movies. 

One of the best things about Trivia Quest is that after you’ve completed an episode you can choose to play again on hard mode. This gives you a whole new set of slightly more tricky questions to answer. Thanks to this Trivia Quest has some serious replayable value, and hard mode can really test your knowledge of a particular subject.

Netflix is releasing a new episode of Trivia Quest every single day throughout April, so there will be 30 total. Don’t worry if you miss a day, you can still go back and replay previous episodes whenever you want. In fact, if you’re just jumping in now you’ve got more than a dozen quizzes waiting for you. Each episode should only take around 5-10 minutes to complete, so they make for great time fillers. 

There is technically a narrative tying the episodes of Trivia Quest together. You’re guided along by an animated character called Willy who’s trying to free his friends from an evil sword with eyes called Rocky. Get enough coins by answering questions right and you can free one of Willy’s pals. To be honest, the story is paper-thin and Willy is more annoying than charming, so we advise playing Trivia Quest with the sound off. After all, most viewers are likely playing for the questions, not the animated characters. 

Trivia Quest is far from Netflix’s first experimentation with interactive content. Earlier this year the streamer released Cat Burglar, which tasks you with answering trivia questions in order to help a feline thief break into a museum. Plus, Netflix has launched interactive movies and shows such as Black Mirror: Bandersnatch, You vs Wild with Bear Grylls and WWE Escape the Undertaker. 

Another day, another Wordle clone arrives to join our list of the best Wordle alternatives. But rather than offer a totally different take on the original, Hurdle takes the classic format we all know and love then gives you five successive games to play. 

Not to be confused with another Wordle clone — the musical guessing game Heardle — Hurdle is aimed at those who find guessing one word a day a bit too limiting. However, it adds to the pressure by requiring you to clear four Hurdles before the final word appears. With each one, the answer will then become the first guess for the next puzzle — so you won't be able to use the best Wordle start words for most of them.

Then, once you get onto the final word, four of the traditional guess slots are pre-filled with the previous correct words, leaving you with just two attempts to uncover the final answer and complete the series. If you fall here, or at an earlier Hurdle, then you’re out and have to wait until tomorrow to try again.

Otherwise, it’s the familiar Wordle that we all know and love. You’re presented with a mystery five-letter word, and you get six guesses to deduce what it may be. Every letter in the right place is marked in green, while a correct letter in the wrong place gets shaded yellow. From there, you have to work backwards to figure out what the gaps could be. In other words, the usual Wordle tips and tricks should work for you just fine here. 

Whether you’ll enjoy this new twist depends on how you treat a successful Wordle completion. For me, it’s a sense of relief that the win has ensured my streak is safe for another 24 hours, but with Hurdle you’re immediately presented with another and the pressure starts all over again. Getting three rounds in successfully was a thrill, but I wouldn’t say it’s exactly relaxing. 

It is, however, less stressful than the battle royale multiplayer Squabble and at least you only have to guess one word at a time, unlike Dordle, Quordle and Octordle which feature two, four and eighth words consecutively respectively. It’s also more straightforward than Semantle, which requires you to figure out a word based on its semantic closeness and which can take hundreds of guesses a time. 

If you want a break from guessing, you could always try setting the mystery word. Adverswordle has you doing just that, while an AI ruthlessly runs through all the possibilities based on you marking its work. Or you could just make words for your friends with Wordle Unlimited and watch others sweat for a change.

Despite what people might think, The New York Times has not made Wordle harder. But it does want people to level up their Wordle game — and it's got a new tool to help you do that.

WordleBot analyzes your most recent game and gives you feedback on how well you did, using math to tell you whether your choices were good ones and what you could have done differently. 

It even gives you a daily score — so yes, there's now yet another thing to get competitive about on Twitter. It's all part of helping you to get more from Wordle — and presumably to stop you searching for today's Wordle answer.

You can access Wordlebot via a web browser, the New York Times app, or the NYT Games app. You'll generally want to use the same device you played your last game on, as it will then import your results and get on with the fun task of telling you how you could have done better.

But that's not the only way to use it; helpfully, you can also upload a screenshot of a previous game and have it analyze that instead. This process is incredibly slick — you simply drag some crosshairs around the word grid and it'll seamlessly pull in the game in question.

I tried it with game #292, and was given a 'Skill score' of 89 against an average of 75. This is apparently based on how well you "minimize the expected number of turns it would take to solve the puzzle." 

You also get a 'Luck' score (I didn't fare so well here) and a 'Steps' score, which is a simple measure of how quickly you found the answer compared to the overall average — 4 for me, against an average of 4.4.

Subsequent pages then take you through your guesses one by one. The first guess is apparently not taken into account when calculating your skill score, but WordleBot does also analyze this. 

My choice of the best Wordle start words has long been STARE, which WordleBot rates as 97/100. However it appears to prefer SLATE (99/100), which is also a fine pick but definitely not as good as mine, whatever it says. 

There's a huge amount of data to delve into if you choose, with the tool telling you how sensible each guess was, what else you could have played and how many possible solutions remained after each go. It's really well done and absolute catnip to a Wordle junkie like me.

It's also free, but you do have to register with the NYT in order to use it. This is a clever move by the media giant, which splashed out a low seven-figure sum to buy Wordle back in February and which has so far left it entirely free to play and free of adverts. 

The NYT was always going to want to recoup that cash, but was presumably mindful of the inevitable bad reaction that would greet any kind of monetization of the game itself. Regular players may well like the sound of WordleBot — I'll definitely be using it again — but because registering instantly signs you up for a morning newsletter, the NYT will hope to convert some Wordlers into paying subscribers down the line.

There's a lengthy explanation of exactly how WordleBot works on the NYT, together with information about what each score means and how WordleBot can improve your game. 

“We hope the bot’s advice will help you think about Wordle more analytically, which will help you get better at solving the puzzles in the long run,” the piece's authors Josh Katz and Matthew Conlen write in the article.

I'd imagine it would do just that, but I'm also arrogant enough to point that I've played every Wordle so far and lost only once, so I'll continue to share my tips every day too.

The list of the best Wordle alternatives is ever growing, and while we’ve already seen some fairly unique entries that seek to mimic the formula of the New York Times puzzle game sensation, this latest Wordle clone is perhaps the most bizarre one yet.

This new Wordle alternative is called Cloudle and it’s perfect for budding meteorologists. The objective is quite simple; you're tasked with guessing the five-day weather forecast for a city which could be anywhere in the world. Instead of putting letters into boxes, you select weather symbols. Get all five in the correct order within six guesses to win the game. 

As per usual with Wordle and its various imitators, if you guess a weather symbol that isn’t in the forecast you’ll be given that information to assist you with your next guess. Pick a weather symbol that appears in the forecast but not in the right place, and you’ll be given a clue that you’re on the right track. Using this information you slowly whittle down the options, until you have the correct forecast figured out. You know the drill by now. 

Of course, unless you’re a professional weatherman, you likely don’t have an encyclopaedia knowledge of upcoming weather forecasts. However, you’ve still got a chance of getting a good score because Cloudle gives you the name of that day's city from the start. For example today’s puzzle was Giza in Egypt. Using this clue you’ve got a good basis to start guessing, after all Giza isn’t exactly known for its blizzards so that's one possible forecast ruled out already. 

As far as Wordle alternatives go, Cloudle is definitely on the weirder side, but it’s still almost as engaging as the game that inspired it. This is largely due to the fact that winning involves a healthy dose of logical reasoning with just a sprinkle of luck thrown into the mix. It’s also approachable even if you don’t have a masters in meteorology, which is appreciated.  

At this point there’s a huge range of Wordle clones out there covering just about every topic and interest you could imagine. From Heardle for music fans, to Mathler for those who prefer numbers to letters. Make sure to check out our rundown of the best Wordle alternatives, there’s sure to be several that will keep you coming back for more on a daily basis.