Maybe you’ve heard of Wordle? When your parents have heard of a game, you know it hit the big time. Wordle is as mainstream as crossword puzzles now — that’s a level of pop-culture saturation almost nothing can reach. And Wordle‘s success has summoned an entire legion of imitators. There are so many Wordle games, you’ll have to play a guessing game to find the best of the bunch.
We’ve scoured the internet for some of the most delightful twists on the standard Wordle formula. From listening to music, to looking at frames, to searching the globe, these are the weird versions of Wordle we’re addicted to. Some of my favorites are demented — one Wordle-inspired game challenges you to guess a movie title by showing you the entire film! Sounds easy, right? Not exactly, because the film is condensed into 1 second of imagery. Try to keep up.
Want more Wordle? Check out our list of best Wordle words to start with.
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Heardle
Instead of words, we’re hunting for melodies in Heardle — a free memory game that challenges you to name a song based on just one second of audio. For each failed guess, you’ll get longer intervals to figure out the daily song. This is one of our favorite challenges, and there are many different alternate versions for players of every taste. Not versed in pop? Try some of these Heardle alternatives.
- Fighting Game Heardle – Guess the themes of your favorite fighting game characters. Bob your head to character select menus.
- Video Game Heardle – For a wider range of game music, try this variant. This might be the trickiest one of all. Throw in indie games and we’re talking infinite possibilities.
- Sonic Heardle – Look, this one just made me laugh.
- Kirby Headle – The Pink Puffball has earned his place.
Framed
For movie buffs looking for a daily challenge, Framed changes the game and offers a single obscure frame of the film as your clue. Can you guess the movie with an empty image of a rusty gate? How about a close-up of a house plant? A rainy window? There are telltale clues movie lovers will pick up instantly, but philistines like me need a few frames to figure out we’re looking at Goodfellas.
- Moviedle – An insane twist on the same concept as Framed, but instead of looking at frames, you watch the entire movie squeezed into a single second. Each failed attempt lets you re-watch at a (slightly) slower speed.
Quolture
Instead of studying frames, Quolture tests your memory for dialogue. Every day Quolture shares a quote from a film and a TV series. Above the quote, you can choose to reveal up-to-two clues about the work or press the “+” to share a random letter from the name of the media. If you pride yourself on remembered every line and enjoy pouring over scripts, this is a fun alternative to Framed.
Confusle
One of many evil variants of Wordle. These twisted little alternatives corrupt the rules we’re all familiar with, and Confusle is one cruel little challenge. It works exactly like Wordle, except each line has one lie. It could be lying about a letter placement, a correct letter, or even an incorrect letter. You really, really have to pay attention to your guesses with Confusle and this isn’t even one of the worst.
- Antiwordle – Guess words that aren’t the solution. Instead of trying to figure out the right word, you’ll want to string along the most words with none of the correct letters — the more incorrect words you guess, the higher your score will be.
- Absurdle – Like Wordle, you have to guess a five-letter word. Unlike Wordle, the solution changes randomly after every guess. Any letters you get right are locked-in, but every other letter will change after every guess. If you can complete Absurdle in four guesses or less, you’re very lucky.
- Weird Wordle – Want a more unpredictable Wordle? Weird Wordle changes the rules daily.
Wheredle
Combine Wordle and Geoguessr to get Wheredle. Using Google Maps Streetview, you’ll have to guess the location based on state. You’ve got a 1-in-50 chance of getting it right, so why not brush up on your US geography? This fun little game doesn’t require an account to play, making it a nice casual substitute for Geoguessr. The only downside is that we aren’t getting a cool tour of the world. You’ll need alternatives for that.
- Globle – Like Globle! Really, this isn’t a perfect substitute for Wheredle. Instead, you’re guessing countries and the globe slowly narrows down which country is the correct answer. The fun of this one is just seeing which countries light up after your first guess. The closer you are, the brighter the red nearby nations will become.
Got your own favorite Wordle copies and variants? Let us know! We’re always looking for me. What did we miss?
