‘Wordle’ variants for multi-taskers: ‘Dordle,’ ‘Quordle,’ ‘Octordle’ – what's next?

Dordle

Dordle, a spin-off of Wordle, involves trying to guess two five-letter words at the same time.

The  devious word game asks players to figure out two five-letter words, with the clues appearing on both puzzles simultaneously. While Wordle gives players six attempts to guess one word, in Dordle, you’re given seven attempts to guess both words, adding to the extra challenge.

Dordle comes from indie games developer Guilherme Tows, who works under the name Zaratustra Productions. Tows credits Wordle with inspiring Dordle, which is described as "wordle plus wordle."

The spin-off was launched in mid-January and currently has 24 puzzles as of Thursday, Feb. 17, 2022. 

Don’t underestimate Dordle. It’s harder than it looks. While I lucked out on my first attempts, the game dishes out some tricky words, with unusual vowels and repeating letters, so solving both puzzles at the same time is not a guarantee.

Unlike Wordle, Dordle lets you keep playing with new puzzles with "Free Dordle" which also serves as practice runs, so proceed with caution. 

You can also change the basic colors in the Dordle puzzle, from light to dark for a different vibe from the classic green, yellow and grey combo.

Play Dordle here.

Quordle

But why stop at two Wordles, when you can do four puzzles at a time? Quordle gives players nine attempts to guess 4 words simultaneously.

Freddie Mayer, the creator of Quordle, said that the puzzle was inspired by Dordle, as developers had a blast playing something more difficult than Wordle, but “still found it uncommon to fail to guess both words in seven attempts.”

"In a moment of evil and genius, David Mah hacked together the first prototype of Quordle on January 30th and linked it to the group chat. It was truly horrific code (it even had two keyboards), but I knew that I had to continue the madness. With hindsight, he really baited me into finishing his monstrous creation," Mayer wrote about the game variant's history.

"Over the next two days I improved the code, removed the second keyboard, and added the color quadrant keyboard. I even added Google Analytics thinking it would be funny to see the stats for our friend group playing,” added Mayer.

According to the developer, the group started with just a few dozen players, but Quordle currently has over 500K players daily and has had over 1M total players.

While it's definitely more challenging than your basic Wordle puzzle, it can be really fun and addicting once you get the hang of it. Like Dordle, this version offers a Daily Puzzle and Free Play option for unlimited play.

Try playing Quordle for yourself here.

Octordle

Ready for the word guessing game big leagues?

Try and tackle the stress-inducing, fearsome (and awkwardly named) Octordle, where you have to guess eight words in 13 tries. Yes, this brand new version of Wordle involves solving eight puzzles at a time, in one game.

Created by Kenneth Crawford, Octordle (which builds on the code of Dordle and Quordle) is an exponentially harder version of Wordle. All eight words have separate grids dedicated to them, with each grid working independently of each other.

Like the previous versions, Octordle is a multitasking version of Wordle with eight concurrent grids operating at the same time, for a real brain-teasing workout.

Each grid and word uses the exact same rules as Wordle, color-coding scheme and the same five-letter words in the English dictionary, but players have to try and solve each as quickly as possible to leave room for guesses.

Working on eight grids at the same time makes the word puzzle game more difficult and frustrating since you can't see everything on the screen, solving all eight before you run out of guesses makes the whole experience ultimately even more rewarding.

Disclaimer, the color coded solution grid is just too long to Tweet out and unwieldy to share on social media, so you probably won't be sharing your results all the time.

Give your brain a real workout by tackling Octordle here.

Tips and Tricks

The newer variants Dordle, Quordle and Octordle offer two different game modes: Daily Play and Free Play, which can work as a practice run or endless time sink that will keep you from doing your regular tasks at home once you start playing.

In the Daily games, like Daily Octordle, the set of eight five-letter words are the same for all players around the world. 

Free Octordle, which lets you play as much as you want, serves as a good way for players to get the hang of the game's multi-tasking approach before attempting the daily Octordle. This game mode allows players to play as much as they want, each time with a new Octordle.

While the mutli-tasking versions of Wordle can seem daunting and overwhelming at first, they're insanely fun and rewarding.

The best way to tackle the puzzle is to focus on one grid that has the most number of letters revealed and try to solve that in the first one or two tries, before moving on to the different grids. You can tackle the grids in any order. 

If you get stuck with a word, scroll down and check out the other grids and try those instead for a better chance of guessing a new word.

At this point, eight puzzles at a time seems insane enough, but with the code just out there, it's only a matter of time before a new variant of the viral puzzle game emerges.