Wordle has completely taken the internet by storm, with millions of players logging in daily to try their hand at the game. As such, Wordle has attracted a lot of attention from many different groups of people.
Unfortunately, not all of these groups come with good intentions, such as those wishing to turn a quick buck with Wordle rip-offs; the rip-offs can be found cluttering the Apple app store, tricking players into thinking they are the real game. Though the scammers can be annoying, they are avoidable; however, when it comes to users sharing their scores on Twitter, one person made sure their ill intentions were unavoidable.
The account in question, Twitter user The Wordlinator (@wordlinator), is apparently a bot account set to reply to other users who post their Wordle results. The goal of the bot seems to be to insult users for posting their results as well as punish others for viewing the tweets, as the message the bot posts is rude and spoils the next day's answer. Luckily for users, Twitter has banned the bot account permanently, allowing users to safely post and view results without the threat of ruining the game.
For those internet users out of the loop, Wordle is a free-to-play browser game that tasks players with guessing a 5-letter word in 6 tries or fewer. Each time a player guesses a word, the letters used will appear as gray, yellow, or green. Gray letters do not appear anywhere within the word; yellow letters appear in the word but are in the wrong position; green letters appear in the word and are in the correct position.
With the goal of Wordle being to test one's problem-solving skills, having the solution to the puzzle spoiled entirely ruins the premise of the game. Why a person would wish to create a bot like this is unknown, but due to the bot posting to others' results, it seems as though the person was upset about perceived "bragging" by players. Perhaps the creator struggled with the game and thus took their frustrations out on players, but regardless of the reasons, the player ruined a lot of fun for others.
Now that the malicious bot has been banned, players can go back to perfecting their strategies for beating the daily puzzle. With Wordle performing insanely well on Twitter, newcomers have a lot of incentive to prove their linguistic skills. For those wishing to join in on the game, anyone can play Wordle for free on any web browser.
Wordle is now playable on PC and mobile devices.