The colors yellow and green, despite being factually two of the most common colors occuring in nature, saw a meteoric rise in prominence this year with the online puzzle game Wordle rising to popularity. Considering the game’s sensational appeal, New York Times is partnering with Hasbro to create a board game version of it.
Originally, Wordle is an online game where the developers select one five-letter word for a day which players get six attempts to guess. Despite players sharing their success widely on social media, the game is a single player one. The board game, however, would be a multiplayer game with one player acting as the ‘wordle host’, deciding a five letter words which players would have to guess in six attempts. Each attempt required adds score to a player’s tally, and the player with the lowest score wins.
In a press release, NYT said “In each round, a player designated as the Wordle Host writes down a Secret Word. Just like the original Wordle game, players have six attempts to guess a five-letter word. But in this game, players are competing against others. The fewer tries a player needs, the fewer points they score. The player with the fewest points at the end of the game wins.” For those who have always wanted more Wordle than you might get in the online format — it’s designed to be only one word per day — the board game has a distinct advantage: you can set as many Secret Words as you want.”
New York Times acquired the game’s rights from creator Josh Wardle for a “low seven figure” price in January, at which point the game had around 2 million active players, according to Wardle. Ever since Wordle’s integration with New York Times, the game has had an impressive run, with tens of millions of active players daily.
Wordle has had widespread acceptance in pop culture, with various spinoffs like Spotify’s Heardle (The song guessing game) and Larry Birdle (The basketball player guessing game) using a similar premise and gaining significant player numbers in the process. It remains to be seen on weather the world is ready to accept the game into their family get-togethers and board game parties. Wordle: The Party Game will be launching in North America for $19.99, and shipments are expected to start of October 1st.
