The Wordle Practice Game That’s Better Than Wordle

Greetings! I built Wordplay, a game that's like Wordle but is totally not Wordle, which is now owned by the New York Times. Now there are 9 ways Wordplay is better than Wordle and 1 way that it's worse. Let's start with the way that it's worse. Wordle lets you play just once a day, once every 24 hours. My wife Kirsten thinks that's part of its charm. Now here's my issue with that: what do they expect me to do the other 23 hours and 55 minutes of my day? But seriously though, I understand why they did it that way, but there are literally millions of us that want to play more than once a day. Maybe you're on a road trip with the kids, maybe you're winding down after dinner with your family and want a group game, or maybe today's word took you 6 tries and this time you need to prove that you're better than that. Anyway, that's one way that Wordplay is worse. Let's talk about the 9 ways that Wordplay is better than Wordle. In Wordplay, you can use the space key to leave a placeholder for letters you're not sure of yet. Once you use this feature, you will never want to go back. It's my wife Kirsten's favorite feature, partly because she came up with the idea. Now Wordle stores everything in your browser. With Wordplay, you can create a free account so you can save all your stats and play across multiple devices. It preserves all your stats and history, and there are a lot of fun stats to look at. Number 3, you can challenge friends and family to a game. I've heard of co-workers and families playing this on a regular basis as a way to take a mental break, my family included. Number 4, Wordplay gives you a score for each game and how you did relative to others that have solved the same puzzle. This opens the opportunity up for tournaments and leaderboards, uh, coming soon. As you play, the software gives you running commentary. I try to make the messages fun and useful, and sometimes I succeed. Number 6, you can learn more about the words by seeing a definition and even hearing how the word is pronounced. Just click the speaker icon. This is great for kids or those learning English. Number 7, there's a 6-letter version of the game that uses a custom hand-curated list of 6-letter words that my wife Kirsten picked out. Great for those looking for more of a challenge. You know who you are. Number 8: Wordplay is independently owned and operated by one person— me! It's not owned by a major media company. This means I personally respond to feedback and ideas. Not a week goes by that Wordplay doesn't get better in some way. How many updates have you seen from that other word game? Font changes and removing words from the list don't count. Finally, I'm I'm not doing this for the money. I'm doing it for the joy. If Wordplay ever generates profits, those profits will all be donated to an education-oriented nonprofit like the Khan Academy. Right now, though, it costs over $5,000 a month to operate the site. It's a labor of love, I tell my wife. It's a labor of love. So that's it. 9 ways that Wordplay is better, and 1 way that it's worse.