Twitter bot spoils next day’s Wordle solutions

Some jerk has created a new bot that responds to people’s Wordle tweets — you know, the post-game, shareable stack of squares that shows your guessing progression — with a spoiler for the next day’s word. The bot, called “The Wordlinator,” not only responds to people’s tweets with spoilers, but also says weirdly aggressive shit like “get on with your life,” “stop bragging,” and “this doesn’t make you look smart.” Very sharp stuff.

It’s a great bot for people who hate the idea of others having harmless fun. Luckily, it is very easy to prevent spoilers by blocking the bot account — even if the bot frequently tweets, “I’ll be back every day.” Here’s the account, along with a warning for spoilers for the next day’s word.

How is the next day’s word even obtainable? Software engineer Robert Reichel discovered how to figure out the next day’s Wordle NME originally reported these words. In his blog, published early January, Reichel explains how to “pick apart the source code” to “reverse engineer the algorithm” in order to get the right answer. He then details the process for how to similarly reverse engineer what the next day’s WordleIt is the solution. Some people are disgruntled. WordleThese skills were used by a hateful person to do evil.

WordleThis is a fun, chill game. Players have six chances of guessing a five-letter word. As you guess, letters will turn green, yellow or gray. Yellow signifies the letter is in the word but in the wrong placement, green means the letter is in the correct spot, and gray means neither is true, though that still makes it useful for process-of-elimination. After solving the day’s puzzle, you can choose to share your results — which the game makes into an easily copy-pasted grid of green, yellow, and gray squares that document your guessing history.

The game is free-to-play, accessible via browser, and a new word is only available once a day — a nice bit of anti-addictive design — and it’s the same word for everyone, making spoilers extra frustrating. The game’s popularity has led to shameless copycats on the iOS app store (some of which have been quietly removed). Meanwhile, the creator of an unrelated and older app named Wordle He donated unexpected profits to charity.

It is possible, WordleTwitter has become saturated with tweets, and you might find this annoying. But if your response is to put effort into ruining random people’s fun, might I suggest logging off your fucking computer and doing something else.