Wordle is played by millions of people around the world and part of the game’s attraction are its simple rules. Players need to work out a mystery five-letter word in six guesses or fewer and are guided by a color-coded tile system to let them know if they’re on the right track.
A green tile means the letter is correct, while yellow tells you the letter appears in the word but is in the wrong spot. Finally, a gray tile shows that the letter does not appear in the word at all.
The viral game was invented by Josh Wardle, a Welsh-born software engineer, who sold the game to The New York Times for a mystery “seven-figure” sum.
Wardle explained why he chose five-letter words as opposed to other word lengths in an interview with Newsweek in January 2022.
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“There is a reason that every word is five letters long and that you are allowed six attempts to guess it. That might seem arbitrary but, with the prototype version, I tested different word lengths and experimented with the number of tries that players were allowed,” he said.
“Through that process of refinement, I figured out that five letters and six tries was the ideal sweet spot. It’s just limited enough to feel challenging and to make you think, but most of the time people still manage to solve it. So, you feel a real sense of real accomplishment.”
Josh Katz and Aatish Bhatia of the New York Times analyzed 515 million Wordle games and found that one of the most popular first-word choices was “Adieu.” However, although it was in the top 30 most-used starting words, it was actually not that helpful in solving the daily puzzle.
“The strategy seems to make sense: Figure out the vowels, and the other letters will fall into place,” wrote Katz and Bhatia. “Our new analysis, though, shows that starting with ADIEU or AUDIO does actually put human players at a disadvantage.”
They continued: “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.”
If you need a hand solving today’s Wordle brainteaser, Newsweek has put together a few hints to help you out. But be warned, the answer appears further down in the article, so scroll with caution if you want to work it out yourself.
‘Wordle’ #1,045, Clues for Monday, April 29
Below are five clues to help you solve today’s Wordle brainteaser.
Hint #1: The answer contains one vowel.
Hint #2: There are no repeated letters.
Hint #3: The third letter is an “A.”
Hint #4: The second letter is a consonant.
Hint #5: The word can be a noun or a verb.
‘Wordle’ #1,045 Answer for Monday, April 29 Game
The answer to today’s Wordle is “craft.”
Wordle is released at midnight in your local time zone and Newsweek will be back with another round of hints and tips for each new game.
While you wait for the next game, why not give the geography guessing game Worldle or other word puzzles a try?
Uncommon Knowledge
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.