A Morning Consult poll shows that one in five Millennials play Wordle: 26% of that demographic said they like to guess words. Overall, 14% of American adults play the puzzle.
The game has no subscription and sends no notifications. There are no level bonuses – just your progress. The results can be shared with friends who guess the same word with you. The head of game design technology at Staffordshire University suggests that the short game reminds those who work at home to take a break and helps them connect with family and friends more often during a pandemic.
Morning Consult also notes a social popularity factor: 43% of respondents first heard about the game on social media, and 21% heard from family and friends. In addition, 59% of all adults and 73% of millennials share their results on their personal accounts.
Users started posting their results before the feature appeared in the game. Josh Wardle added it after seeing publications where the results were coded with emoji.
What’s also interesting is that you can only play the game once a day. You can’t spend hours guessing words like in most popular apps. This is an unusual mechanic for an era in which services are trying to increase screen time in any way they can, and mobile studios create games based on the Play-to-Earn model (where players get paid for the very act of being active).
What does that have to do with math?
Not only lovers of language puzzles are interested in the game, but mathematicians are also interested in it. Based on the theory of information they are developing strategies for finding the right words. For example, Twitter now has an algorithm that helps you get the right answer in 50% of cases and in 90% – to determine three words one of which will be correct. Cambridge math professor Tim Gowers believes that the game also affects entropy theory because it changes the amount of information needed to determine a particular object from a set.
Users often post results on Twitter, so there’s also a guessing method based on analyzing the posts. In it, you calculate and compare the distributions of results for that day with the distributions for each possible word, compare it to a list of unacceptable results that you have to do beforehand, and then make a guess.
Now there’s also an adaptation with numbers, Wordle for mathematicians. In it, you have to make an equation whose answer is “number of the day.” There is also another modification of the game – Lewdle – with obscene vocabulary.