What Is Wordle, Is There A Malaysian Version & Why Did A Twitter Account Get Suspended For The Game?

By Quinny Tan  •  27 Jan 2022 in News

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Wordle is everywhere and completely unavoidable, especially if you spend any time at all on Twitter. Seen posts featuring yellow, green and grey boxes? Yep, that’s Wordle. But… what the hell is it? I’m glad you asked.

Who else is playing #Wordle? Addicted. pic.twitter.com/HJ7pt7WLmn

— jimmy fallon (@jimmyfallon) January 4, 2022

Wordle is a daily word game you can find online here. It’s fun, simple and, like a crossword, can only be played once a day.

Every 24 hours there’s a new word of the day, and it’s up to you to figure it out what it is. The site itself does a fantastic job of explaining the rules:

Wordle gives players six chances to guess a randomly selected five-letter word. As shown above, if you have the right letter in the right spot, it shows up green.

A correct letter in the wrong spot shows up yellow. A letter that isn’t in the word in any spot shows up grey.

Yeah, it’s just a word game. But it’s super popular: Over 300,000 people play it daily, according to The New York Times.

That popularity may sound perplexing, but there are a few tiny details that have resulted in everyone going absolutely bonkers for it.

In fact, its gained so much attention that someone created a bot account on Twitter that spoils the following day’s word.

Twitter has banned @wordlinator, a bot that replied to people’s Wordle posts with rude messages that include spoilers for the next day’s game.

The account’s spoilers appeared to be accurate, which could end up ruining the game for anyone who sees them.

The account aims to “terminate Wordle bragging”, and appears to automatically reply to anyone who shares their successful Wordle results with a spoiler for the next day’s word of the day.

Many of these automated replies accuse users of “bragging” about their scores, while other replies say that people sharing their results are “spoiling Twitter for everyone”.

“Just what kind of sick, twisted person do you have to be to hate the sight of people enjoying a harmless activity so much you hack Wordle?” tweeted one player on Tuesday.

In brighter Wordle news, the developer of a five-year-old app sharing its name with Wordle has donated his surprise proceeds to a literacy charity. According to its creator, users were accidentally downloading the app whilst trying to find the Wordle that’s viral at the moment.

It’s popularity even prompted a Malay version of the game, called Katapat which is a portmanteau of “Kata” and “Tepat. And, the puzzle kind of looks like a Ketupat if users guess the words correctly in a few tries.

Katapat was released last on 22 January and has already garnered over 2,500 users in three days.

“My friend thought it was a fun thing to share with others, but we didn’t expect it to go viral so quickly,” says creator of Katapat, Eugene Low, a 32-year-old app developer.

Low developed the game by reproducing Wordle’s code, he says the game would not have been possible without the help of his friends and family, who came out with the name, logo, Malay word list and translations so that Low could bring the game to fruition.

“It’s just nice to have a version closer to home while being carried by the hype of the Wordle. It’s nice to see everyone enjoying it as much as I enjoyed putting it together with my friends,” says Low.

So, have you played either versions yet? Log on every day for a new brain challenge!