There is no shortage of Wordle alternatives out there, and their number keeps increasing as the interest in the simple puzzle refuses to die down. We covered some of the best Wordle alternatives in an earlier story, but one powerful option has been gaining both attention and popularity since. It is called Quordle.
So much like Wordle…
What makes Quordle the near-perfect step up from Wordle is its utter similarity to Wordle. You have to guess a five-letter word. You have a limited number of guesses to make. There is an empty grid with five empty boxes in each row. Every time you enter a word into these boxes, the game tells you which of the letters in the word are part of the answer. If the letters occupy the same position in the answer as they do in the word you entered, the box turns green. And if they are a part of the answer but are in a different position, the box turns yellow. If the letters are not part of the answer, the box turns grey. These colors are also reflected in the onscreen keyboard that you can use to enter the letters in the grid. You get one puzzle per day. The trick is to get to the word that matters with the least number of guesses. You can also share your answers in the form of a blank grid with grey, yellow and green squares showing how you arrived at your answer without showing the words you entered in the grid. And it is also totally Web-based.
…but multiplied by four!
If you have played Wordle, you can hit the grid running with Quordle too. So what’s different, you ask? Well, you do not have to deal with a single six-row, five-column grid. And you do not have to guess a single word. As its name might indicate to some, Quordle is four times Wordle. The single grid that you see, actually comprises four equal grids, with nine rows of five boxes each. In every game of Quordle, you have to guess four different five-letter words. Also, each word you type is displayed in each of the four grids. And the game tells you which letter appears where in the answer. It uses the same format as Wordle – gray, yellow, and green boxes. So while in Wordle you get five guesses to find the word, here you have a total of eight tries!
A grid with 180 boxes…but with lots of clues
It is these limited guessing options that make Quordle such a challenge. You actually are solving four Wordles at the same time. And with the same guesses. That might sound intimidating, especially when you consider that, unlike Wordle where you deal with a total of thirty empty boxes, you deal with 180 (yes) here. It is not quite as tough as it sounds. We have been playing Quordle for more than a week and have yet to ever make a guess that was TOTALLY useless. Every word that we put into the grid got a green or yellow box in at least one of the four grids. So you are unlikely to feel the sort of desperation that you get on Wordle – there will always be green and yellow boxes in a few of those 180 boxes on view. In military parlance, there are hardly any blank shots – you will hit some part of the target with every word you guess. The on-screen keyboard also lights up helpfully showing the position of each letter in each grid.
So while you might be struggling in one grid, you might actually be doing very well in others. For instance, if your guess is “Table” – the letter ‘T’ might be part of the answer in one grid but in a different position, it might be part of the answer in the right position in another one, and might not be part of the answer at all in the remaining two. On the onscreen keyboard, the letter ‘T’ will be divided into four portions, one of which is green, one yellow, and two grey! You might not always get all the four answers, but you will rarely be short of clues, and more often than not, will at least get one or two of the four answers. Incidentally, if you guess the answer early in one of the grids, it simply becomes a guess in the remaining ones. A grid stops the moment you guess the answer.
Crazy, addictive… pen and paper level addictive
It is this constant rain of clues in different grids that makes Quordle the addictive game that it is. Every guess yields clues for a different answer in a different manner. It is a bit like juggling, with you having to keep your eyes on different words and letters from beginning to end, as each shows you where it belongs in the answers. This level of complexity means that, unlike Wordle, you will be lucky to solve Quordle in a few minutes. In fact, we have often found ourselves sitting with a pen and paper (or just some tiles from our Scrabble set), working out different word options, and looking at unused letters. Its multiple grids in a single grid format remind us of Sudoku, the popular number puzzle (STILL very popular – Microsoft has designed a version of it), but the limited guessing options and different letters having different places in different answers can make it quite a challenge. Wordle is five guesses, one word. Quordle is eight guesses, four words. It is pretty much Wordle multiplied. While it is way more challenging, we think it is as much, if not more, fun. Just make sure you keep more time aside to solve it. And use the practice mode liberally! Play Quordle here.
