Wordle: by now it’s a game that students are more than likely to have heard of; whether they play it or not. This game has become an obsession spanning throughout many generations. Kids are playing it during class, adults are playing it during their lunch breaks and grandparents are playing it before book club. Hundreds of thousands of people are playing this word-puzzle game daily, in order to challenge themselves and compete with their relatives and friends.

This game, seeming to have popped out of nowhere, has a back story that would make even the heartless awe. Wordle was created by Josh Wardle for his partner who loves word puzzles. Soon after he shared this guessing game with his relatives, it was released to the public in October of 2021. This word-puzzle app is non-frilly and allows players to solve without the extra pop-ups and ads found on most free web applications.

“I think people kind of appreciate that there’s this thing online that’s just fun,” Wardle said in an interview conducted by the New York Times, “It’s not trying to do anything shady with your data or your eyeballs. It’s just a game that’s fun.”

If you’re not already aware of Wordle, it’s a game where you have six chances to guess a five-letter word. Every time you guess, it displays green if you got a letter in the correct place, yellow if the letter is in the word but incorrect placement, or gray if the letter is not in the word. Once the word is found, or after six tries, you are given your streak and how many times it took you to get the word compared to past attempts. Although Wordle isn’t built to compete with anyone other than ourselves, it doesn’t stop Wordle-ers from competing with their friends and family.

“I think it’s good for my brain, but it’s also a challenge with a friend in England and my sister who lives on the east coast; so it’s definitely a competitive thing. If I know that my sister got the word in three tries, I definitely feel the need to get it in two,” Molly Haglin, a long-time Wordle-player said.

While it doesn’t seem like an extremely competitive game, many users desire to guess the word in fewer tries than others; this has been a huge contribution to why people have continued to play the word game every day.

While it’s a fun game, The Spartan Speaks held interviews with multiple different users spanning the generations to see if there are any educational benefits to playing Wordle.

“It’s amazing how I can look at three letters and I can’t seem to figure out what the word is. It’s frustrating but it also causes me to challenge myself,” Orono High School senior Lilly Reiner said.

Although Wordle is a competitive game, it’s also a brain game that stimulates one’s mind.

So if you are a person who can hardly function enough to get out of bed, definitely consider starting your morning with a Wordle to wake you up and work out your brain with a puzzle every day. Overall, users said that the daily Wordle is something fun and makes them feel like they’ve accomplished something. After all, it’s only five letters.