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Few games hit the popularity and buzz Wordle has within the last few months. Since its humble beginnings in October 2021, its letter guessing mechanic sees millions launch their browser to try and solve the daily five-lettered word. While its premise might seem easy by default, its hook is the discussions that often follow each solution or lack thereof, with social media playing a key role in its popularity.
Truly a cultural phenomenon, the premise of Wordle has even been used for marriage proposals. However, its crack-the-code word mechanic is not new to gaming by any means, with a good deal of edutainment PC games in the 90s integrating wordplay as one of its main challenges. One series, which has been largely forgotten beyond the memories of nostalgic PC gamers is The Cluefinders series, which saw young players traverse through different school-based language puzzles on their adventure to retrieve exotic artifacts.
One Reddit user Davidharper1186 has shared a screenshot from the old-school edutainment game The Cluefinders Reading Adventures which shows a puzzle very similar to a daily Wordle. In the screengrab, three gargoyles block the path for two of its characters, Joni Savage and Owen Lam, giving hints of the word with a corresponding number column determining which correct letters are in the right and wrong places. Despite only four letters forming the word, given its 9-12 years old age range, the resemblance to Wordle is more than similar, predating it by 23 years.
Commenters on the post have since also reminisced their time with The Cluefinders series, with the original poster joining in to help solve the word facing the protagonists. While Wordle doesn't show a number column, it does highlight which letters are in their respective places or help form the word. Cluefinders, however, uses the left number column to show letters in their correct place, and the right column shows correct letters in their incorrect place. The word for this puzzle is "Help".
Since the New York Times' acquisition, many players have become concerned that Wordle has become pretentious, with far more challenging words than what The Cluefinders would approach in their travels. As the latest acquisition of a property, occurring ever more frequently amongst publishers and developers in the gaming industry, it remains to be seen what the future holds for the popular word game.
Establishing a simplistic formula like that of Wordle's has been a major reason for its success. Indeed, some clones have surfaced with one game, Survivle, challenging players not to solve its words. Despite this, as the craze continues to dominate social media feeds, and cryptic clues aid those before attempting each daily puzzle, the impression made by The Cluefinders still echoes within some nostalgic minds; "Help".
Wordle is available to play on all browsers.