Wordle fascinates the SCHS community

James Kepner|April 4, 2022

Many Bruins find Wordle as a fun and engaging way to spend their time.

Wordle has caught the attention of students and staff alike at SCHS, and it shows no signs of losing its hype. The objective of the game is to guess a random five-letter word in six guesses or less. Every user will get the same word, and each day there will be a new word to guess.

English teacher Courtney Hayes heard about the game while listening to her morning show on the way to work. She was intrigued by the strategy of the game and asked her students if they play as well.

“I brought it up to my students that day,” Hayes said. “I was like, ‘Hey guys, have you heard of this game Wordle?’ and they were like, ‘Oh my gosh, Ms. Hayes, you have to play. It’s so fun.’ And I am like, ‘Okay,’ and then I played that game and I was hooked.”

Hayes loves the idea of competition and enjoys being able to connect with her students through the game. She enjoys racing her students to see who can guess the word the fastest.

“I love puzzles, so that’s one thing, and I like competition,” Hayes said. “I like to compete with myself and my students to see how quickly I can get it.”

Wordle has become a staple in Hayes’s weekday routine, which is similar to freshman Saamya Yadav, who plays Wordle each morning while she waits for her carpool buddy.

“It is really addictive because I’m able to guess a word in six guesses,” Yadav said. “It is not like a game I have ever played before, so I find it very interesting.”

One of the most notable features of the game is that players are only allowed to guess one word daily, which has some mixed opinions. Although Yadav and Hayes both wish for more words per day, they understand the reasoning behind the decision.

“I think part of the fact that it’s once a day makes it unique,” Hayes said. “It brings up the demand and the intrigue. They are very smart to only do it once a day, and I think it keeps people coming back.”

For those who are eager to guess more than one word, they would have to access the archives, or turn to spin-offs. While Yadav fills her free time scrolling through the previous Wordles, Hayes looks to the alternatives.

“One that I want to do but I haven’t done yet is Heardle, where it plays a song, because I feel like I am pretty well-versed in music too,” Hayes said. “I think that would be a fun one.”

Throughout their play, Yadav and Hayes have come across some humorous and unique words, including “vivid,” “rupee” and “sissy.” The mechanics of the game do not clearly express whether a letter is used more than once which can make guessing these words more difficult.

“I hated ‘vivid,’” Hayes said. “When ‘vivid’ was the word I was like, ‘Are you kidding me?’ It is a common word, but it’s not something that you think of when it has two ‘v’s because it is not a common letter.”

Yadav appreciates the straightforward mechanics of the game and does not believe that the game needs any changes.

“I like it the way it is,” Yadav said. “I don’t think it needs any updates because it’s pretty simple and adding more complexities would just change the basic idea of the game.”

Hayes appreciates the fact that Wordle is different from the other common computer games because of the limited play per day. She believes Wordle will last longer because of its unusual characteristic.

“For example, 2048 or whatever, they peter off after a while,” Hayes said. “They don’t hold their interest, where Wordle will be because it’s once a day.”