The viral word game Wordle has spawned yet another clone, though Octordle provides an even deeper challenge as players guess all eight answers simultaneously. Wordle’s viral success can be attributed to a combination of things, from its dedicated community constantly sharing results on social media to its simplistic game design. Since there is only one puzzle each day, players are a lot less likely to feel burnout from overplaying. That being said, the reason for Wordle’s popularity was officially revealed by a psychologist, who claimed that the game stimulates the language and logic processing centers of human brains, thereby releasing dopamine and causing players to return day after day.
Many Wordle clones have jumped on the bandwagon, hoping to obtain at least a portion of the original’s viral success. One early design was Lewdle, developed by Star Wars writer Gary Whitta, which tasks players with guessing a vulgar five-letter word each day. Other, less-naughty options have spawned since, like the Lord of the Rings Wordle clone, Lordle of the Rings, and Moxfield’s Magic: the Gathering version, Moxle. While each has its own unique spin, most of the Wordle clones follow similar gameplay designs as the original, providing six attempts to guess the five-letter word, revealing important letters with color-coded responses. Some Wordle clones are vastly different, however, like Dungleon, a fantasy version of Wordle with dungeon crawler elements.
The latest Wordle clone, Octordle, provides the ultimate challenge, requiring players to guess all eight five-letter words in thirteen guesses. The catch is that all eight Octordle words are guessed simultaneously, with each guess being entered across all of the eight Octordle boards. Like Wordle, Octordle shows which of the five letters guessed are in the puzzle and which are in the right spot for all eight boards. The player must then deduce all eight Octordle words by utilizing their thirteen guesses. Octordle is following Wordle’s footsteps, providing a new puzzle each day, but the clone also has the Free Octordle game mode that lets players play as much as they want, promising that every Octordle is a surprise.
Ever since Wordle transitioned to New York Times’ website, there have been a few recorded changes to the viral word game. Though the free-to-play game has remained void of microtransactions, ads, and paywalls, the community has noticed changes like its removal of offensive words and the switch to The New York Times’ house style. There is also the new High Contrast Mode that changes green boxes to orange and yellow boxes to blue, and the daily answers are seemingly more challenging than before. Despite the changes, Wordle has maintained its popularity, proving that the craze is far from over.
Octordle is Wordle to the max, requiring even more strategy than blindly inputting five-letter words. Each guess must be utilized to reveal key letters on multiple boards at once, so planning out what words to use and when is extremely important. Octordle is similar to Quordle, which is Wordle four times at once. The original Wordle seemed tough enough, but those looking for an even deeper challenge can jump from one board to four boards, and now to eight boards – each requiring more mental energy than the last.
Source: Octordle