New York Times Has Changed Wordle. I Can Prove It
I’ve dug through the code and I can prove Wordle has changed.
I’m a software developer by day, mostly working on web apps. I’ve worked for big companies like Netflix to non-profits like PBS NewsHour to startups. One of my favorite things to do on the web is figure out the answer to this question: “How did they do that?”
When Wordle was growing in popularity, I jumped on the bandwagon. I’ve consistently played for over 800 days straight (as a note, I’ve had two children in that time, and yes I played in the delivery room). So, one of the first things I did was figure out how the original author created the game.
Before it was purchased by the New York Times, the whole thing was a simple web app. The creator specifically said he didn’t want to release it on the app store to promote web-based games. I loved seeing a progressive web app (PWA) getting so much traction.
The perk of it being all on the web was that I could easily look at the source code and answer the “How did they do that?” question!
As a side note, the code also wasn’t minified back then, so it made it especially easy for a JavaScript developer to see exactly how the game was built. And given the game didn’t capture any personal information (at the time)…
