As players worry that Wordle may not be free forever, maths based alternative Nerdle has been earning a lot of new fans.
When The New York Times bought Wordle for a ‘seven figure’ sum it came with the ominous promise that it would only remain free ‘initially’.
There is a trick to keeping the original version free, but there are also a host of unofficial clones and variants you can play as well, including the increasingly popular Nerdle.
Nerdle is basically Wordle but with numbers, where you’re trying to guess an equation in six tries. That seems impossible at first but it’s surprisingly doable given that you have to have an equals sign in there and everything to the right of it has to be just a number, not another calculation.
What is Nerdle and how do you play it?There’s no pretending that Nerdle isn’t difficult, but it sounds a lot worse when you explain it so the best thing to do is just jump in and try it – which you can do by clicking here.
There are eight squares you have to fill in on each try, which can only be the following numbers and symbols: ‘0123456789+-/=’. The ‘’ symbol indicates you’re multiplying the number and ‘/’ that you’re dividing.
Just like Wordle, if you get something right it’ll light up in green, but if you’ve got the right symbol but in the wrong place it’ll be purple. If it’s not in the equation at all it’ll be black.
Players are already trying to work out the best way to start off a guess but do bear in mind that multiplying and dividing has to come before adding and subtracting.
Also, the order of the answer is important, so if you have 10+20=30 but the real answer is 20+10=30 you still won’t win.
Whether Nerdle will become as popular as Wordle remains to be seen but it is definitely free… at least
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