Category Archives: Mobile games

What in the world is happening to our beloved Wordle?

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Fans say the puzzle is getting harder, with some swearing they’ve had enough. We look at the psychology behind the game’s appeal and the rising discontent among players

It started as a token of love, then went viral, and now it’s making people angry. If you noticed that “token”, “viral” and “angry” are all five-letter words, then the chances are you’re a devotee of Wordle, the online word puzzle that has become an internet craze.

For those who have just returned from walking across the Sahel, Wordle is a game in which you have to guess, or work out, a five-letter word. Each day there is a new word. You can have six attempts, and each correct letter selected is awarded a yellow square. If it’s also in the correct place, it’s a green square. All other letters get a grey square.

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Will Wordle still be free after the New York Times buyout?

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Will the hit game imminently be locked behind a paywall or stay as it is? What about ads? The NYT’s head of games explains the plan

In a month of spectacular video game industry buyouts, symbolised by Microsoft’s incredible $68bn swoop for Activision Blizzard, there is one purchase that has sent paroxysms of fear across the planet. On Monday, the New York Times revealed that it had bought the viral megahit Wordle for a “low seven figure sum”. The web-based word puzzle, which launched in October, was originally intended as a gift from software engineer Josh Wardle to his partner. But it has become a viral sensation, amassing an audience of millions – and key to its appeal is the fact that it’s free, with no ads.

So what does a big newspaper like the New York Times want with a game like Wordle, and what happens next?

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Wordle creator overwhelmed by global success of hit puzzle

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Josh Wardle developed game to play with his partner – and now more than 2m others have joined in

Wordle, a deceptively simple online word puzzle, has had a meteoric rise since its launch last autumn, from 90 daily players in November to 300,000 at the beginning of January, to 2 million last weekend. But, for its creator, the game’s rapid success has resulted in as much anxiety as excitement.

The game has become an unexpected grassroots hit for Josh Wardle, who developed it for his puzzle-loving partner. The pair played it for fun on their sofa, and other users slowly began to join them.

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What is Wordle? The new viral word game delighting the internet

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A pleasant little daily brainteaser, Wordle is a simple, shareable word guessing game that is gaining popularity on Twitter

If you’ve noticed lots of posts on Twitter containing a bunch of coloured boxes, then you have come across the latest word game sweeping (portions of) the internet: a pleasant little brainteaser named Wordle.

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From Monument Valley to Minecraft: 10 of the best mobile games

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Revisit tortured first loves, explore a deserted town and make your daily plod around the park more exciting with Pokémon Go

Given that we are all sitting at home staring at our phones anyway, it’s a good time to take a break from the doomscrolling to broaden your phone game palette. Nobody has really bettered this Escher-esque puzzler about guiding a wee girl through levels full of optical illusions and cool perspective changes. The calming colours and minimalist style offset the fiendishness of its architectural conundrums.

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Comfort and control: video game recommendations for the ongoing lockdown

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From lonely birds to legal eagles, our critics share their favourite digital diversions to combat the boredom and uncertainty of the Covid era

I’m not sure why I keep going back to Cloudpunk (PS4, Xbox, PC, Switch). The sprawling, dystopian city of Nivalis is every bit the future imagined by the cyberpunk fiction of the 1980s, a technocracy full of staggering inequality and endless skyscrapers rising into the clouds, embroidered with neon. I finished the game, in which you play a driver delivering packages in a flying car, months ago. And yet I keep returning to race aimlessly across its gleaming airborne highways and luxe high-rises, soothed by the hum of my engine.

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Among Us: the video game that has shot 100 million players into outer space

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A new hunger for social contact during lockdown has boosted participation in online multiplayer games

If “sus” and “vent” mean nothing to you, then you’ve somehow missed out on the smash-hit multiplayer game Among Us. But with numbers playing the online game heading towards 100 million, maybe you’ll find out before Christmas how good you are at being an “impostor” .

For the uninitiated, Among Us is the sleeper game hit of 2020. The premise is simple: it’s Cluedo or Wink Murder on a spaceship with four to 10 players of crewmates and impostors. The crewmates perform simple tasks for take-off, while impostors sabotage operations and kill other players. Impostors are the only players who can travel through vents – hence the significance of vent in Among Us. Gamers hold meetings to pick a suspect – which is where the word sus comes in – to jettison. The aim is to catch the impostors.

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