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Hint: The daily word game that has been blowing up recently.

In case you are unaware, the topic of today is Wordle. In simplest terms, Wordle is a game of 5 letter words. The player has to try and guess a specific 5 letter word in 6 or fewer guesses. If you cannot guess the word correctly within 6 guesses, you lose. The player uses these hints to correctly guess the word of the day, as there is only one word per day. This makes it so the player only gets one shot per day to get the right word. 

Junior Giana Yanos is a regular Wordle player. “I love it because it’s a good challenge but it’s not too hard,” she said. “I get to play against my friends and try to beat their scores every day. They think I’m cheating because I keep beating them, but they’re just jealous because they’re losing,” she added with a laugh.

Even Moanalua teachers are hooked on the popular word game. Some challenge their students in class as a way to warm up their brains for the day. Science teacher Justin Kohara plays the game daily and has his own thoughts on why it’s enjoyable. 

“Wordle is a brain-booster game that you can do every day,” he said. “It also expands your vocabulary, especially when the word is something uncommon. It’s pretty quick too, so it’s not gonna take a long time to finish.”

When asked if he ever lost, he said “not yet.” Although some students doubt this claim, it is entirely provable as Wordle keeps track of your statistics. It catalogs every time you played, the words you got right, and in how many guesses you got those words. It also remembers when you lost, so there’s no way to work around days you didn’t get the word. 

As a wise man once said, men lie, women lie, but Wordle never lies. 

New York-based software engineer Josh Wardle invented the game and released it in the fall of 2021, where it immediately became a hit. The New York Times newspaper bought Wordle for $1 million and quickly made some questionable changes. First of all, they removed some words that previously could be used in the game. Although some of these words were deemed “inappropriate” for being profane, this upset many Wordle players who were used to using them in the game. There were also complaints that the word choices recently have been overly difficult and poor choices. However, blame for the recent words should not be pinned on the Times, as the word list for the upcoming days was chosen long ago and has not been edited.

Whether you love, hate, or never heard of Wordle before, the game has been gaining a large following and influence over our school. So don’t be scared to give it a try.