Ever feel like playing Wordle is too easy? Too simple? Too boring? I mean, the game has been trending for a while, and people basically have all the strategies figured out. But have no fear…it’s just time to level up how we play Wordle! Many challenging variations have emerged since the game started trending, and this article is a guide to a few of them, along with some of the strategies I use to win!
Hardle
Hardle gives you the amount of greens, yellows, and greys, but not the placement of the colors. Therefore, this is a game where you have to use logic to deduce the placement. The program allows you to mark the color of the letters, which is nice, as it helps visualize what has been deduced so far.
The strategy for this game is to try to get a word with zero greens and yellows and fully greys, because that’s a word that allows you to eliminate all five letters at once. Then, from that, you can test out many letters and get a color which you can definitely assign to that letter. I usually use the word “NYMPH” because it covers a lot of rare letters.
When playing this game, one of the most annoying scenarios is when you always get one color per word, because you don’t even know which letter that color is assigned to! That will happen inevitably sometimes, so my best advice would just be trust your gut and see what happens!
Fibble
Fibble is a game basically like Wordle, but the twist is that one letter is a lie (aka a fib). The program provides flags on the side to mark out the lies as a tool to help you visualize what the lies are. There is also a starting word provided, which you may use to your advantage.
The best strategy for Fibble would be to try to change one letter between guesses to figure out the lies. For example, if you guess “BATCH” and “MATCH” and the A and T are yellow in “BATCH” but both grey in “MATCH,” you can deduce that those two have to be the fibs in the two guesses (although you don’t know what the exact fib is), and therefore know that whatever colors B, M, C, and H are shown are accurate. This allows you to not be deterred by the lies and make optimized guesses.
Fibble can get tricky when you are not able to figure out what the lie is, so my best advice would be to try to figure out the lies before proceeding.
Xordle
Xordle is Wordle, but you’re trying to figure out two words simultaneously. The best strategy for this would be to try to get all ten letters and then figure out the placement. The four words I commonly use to check 20 common letters are brick, podgy, shunt, and flame. Great for getting letters!
Another tip for this game is to utilize the starting word to your advantage, as the answers are related to that word. For example, for January 7th’s Xordle, the starting word was “RUBIK,” while the answers were “SHAPE” and “CUBIC.”
Nerdle
Nerdle is basically Wordle, but with math equations! Again, like Xordle, I like to first try to figure out what the numbers are and then place them. The tricky thing about this game, though, is that the equation that you write actually has to work. But usually the game won’t give any super hard calculations, so it’s doable. It definitely gets easier with practice.
Betweendle
For this game, you have to figure out the answer through alphabetical clues. The game will tell you whether your guess is alphabetically before or after the answer, and will also provide how close you are to each side through relative numbers (the smaller the number, the closer it is). For this game, I like to start off with the middle of the alphabet (like “maker”) and then go from there. Try to first get the first letter, and then narrow it down to the second, and so on.
Crosswordle
This game is like reverse Wordle. The final answer is given to you, and you have to fill in the previous guesses. The tricky thing is that the previous guesses have predetermined colors. You have to try to match and fill out those letters with actual words. Although this game sounds easy, it is actually pretty hard because you can’t repeat a lot of grey letters or use the same letter twice, which significantly limits which words you can use.
Pixletter
This game utilizes the shape of the letter in pixel form. For every word, it reveals one row of which pixels are correct in the letter you guessed. If you guessed the right letter, though, it will fully reveal that entire letter.
My strategy for this game is to start off with the word “STEER” because it hits a lot of the top row and can give lots of information. Based on that, I would try to narrow down my guesses. This game may be hard at the beginning because you may not be familiar with the pattern of the pixels, but once you’ve got a good grasp on it,, it’s easy to see which letter it is based on the pixels revealed.
Alas, we have finally come to the end of all the -ordles (at least all the ones I play!). If Wordle no longer challenges your brain, these games surely will. Be careful not to play these too much though…because I myself got absolutely hooked onto these games, and it becomes a dangerous addiction! Have fun Wordling!
