Don't Wordle: The Puzzle That's Surprisingly Hard to Win
Don't Wordle is a free daily puzzle that flips Wordle's objective: instead of guessing the hidden 5-letter word, you must avoid it. The game uses the same color-coded feedback (green, yellow, gray) but forces you to respect the information from previous guesses by reusing green letters in place and yellow letters in new spots, making it surprisingly difficult to win. The site includes a 'valid words remaining' counter, undo options, and various strategies, including a 'Purist' mode that bans undos and common words only.
It’s surprisingly tough to _lose_ Wordle if you’re making an honest attempt to try to win.
- amiga386
12935 -> TIZZY (5625) -> OXBOW (2674) -> GRUFF (858) -> MAMMA (195) and I'll let you guess the rest but my next choice left 43 words, and I survived with only 4 words possible.
The rules not letting use a letter you know isn't in the target word drastically cuts your choices, your best bet is to use as few unique letters per word as you can, and as uncommon letters as you can, but as all normal words need vowels you'll be forced into only picking a vowel from the target word soon enough. Try to find letters that are in the word as late as possible so you're not locked into having to use them.
Once you are forced to use letters from the target word, avoid placing them in the right place. Sadly there's a rule not letting you use a known letter more than once in a word (once A is known, you can't write ALPHA), and a rule for not letting you put a known letter in a place you know it doesn't go (so after MAMMA, you can't have HALVE because you know there's not an A in second place, nor ALPHA because you know there's not an A in fifth place).
- Angostura
If you enjoy clicking things you can spend hours in their cookie consent boxes untickinv the several hundred individual ‘legitimate interest’ tick boxes for individual vendors
- flexie
We are asked to allow hundreds of cookies, not just a few, to play the game.
- dontwordle
Wow I can't believe this showed up on the front page years later. That's fun! I am still new to using Google AdSense and am enjoying the wrath of HN on this thread! Hope everyone can still enjoy the game today. Thank you for the feedback!
- dang
Related:
Show HN: Can you lose at Wordle if you tried? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31572258 - May 2022 (236 comments)
- markkat
Nice. I play Last Word daily.
https://dragonfjord.com/lastword/
It's the same goal, but everyone starts with the same word each day, which does not include any letters in the "last word".
No undos in Last Word. My average is 8.7 letters. Really hoping to get it to 9.
- gpvos
It took me a minute to find out that I needed to close the instructions to see the actual game. A Play button would have been nice.
- hollylawly
Of course the one time I get it in 2 guesses is in this version