TITLE
‘Wordle’: Doing the Opposite of What You’re Meant To
AUTHOR
Josh Wardle
PUBLICATION
GDC
YEAR
2022
TITLE
‘Wordle’: Doing the Opposite of What You’re Meant To
AUTHOR
Josh Wardle
PUBLICATION
GDC
YEAR
2022
To borrow internet parlance for a moment, Journey is a video game designed to hit you right in the feels. You play as an androgynous character dressed in a sweeping red robe, dwarfed by stark landscapes of sand and snow. Pushing the PlayStation controller’s left analog stick, you move forward, slowly at first, and then, later in the game, with exuberant speed, as if you’re surfing. Most of the time you’re alone, but if you’re lucky, you’ll come across another figure, its silhouette fluttering in the distance. You might travel together for a few minutes and then part ways, or perhaps you’ll reach the end of the game in one another’s company. Regardless, this time will feel almost miraculous—a chance encounter at the very edge of the world.
The game’s setting gleams with flecks of Gustav Klimt gold while a single towering mountain dominates the horizon. The game is called Journey for a reason, and its deliberately allegorical story curves toward tragedy, as if this is the fate awaiting us all. Unlike most games, you die only once. Rather than a cheap metaphor for failure, it’s something heavier—a crescendo, an act of self-annihilation.
Now, it’s widely accepted that games can move us in ways similar to novels, movies, or music, but in March 2012, when Journey came out on PS3, this simply wasn’t the case. Sure, there were the works of Fumito Ueda, Ico and Shadow of the Colossus—stark, artful games of the aughts from Japan that tugged more on the heartstrings than the itchy trigger finger. So too had the rise of independent games from 2008 onward given birth to a slew of newly personal titles such as Braid. Journey, however, felt different—a video game with levels, an avatar, and enemies, but that, mechanically, eschewed almost all else to focus entirely on movement. The game had cutscenes, but these were reserved for establishing shots of glinting sand rather than moments of genuine dramatic thrust. What Journey achieved—which few, if any, video games had before—was giving you a lump in your throat while you actually interacted with it. This was a big deal.
TITLE
Ten Years Ago, ‘Journey’ Made a Convincing Case That Video Games Could Be Art
AUTHOR
Lewis Gordon
PUBLICATION
The Ringer
YEAR
2022
TITLE
The making of Unpacking: Developer Witch Beam on bringing the moving indie hit to life
AUTHOR
Chris Schilling
PUBLICATION
Edge
YEAR
2022
TITLE
The History of Wordle: A Story in Nine Tweets
AUTHOR
John Scalzo
PUBLICATION
Video Game Canon
YEAR
2022
Wordle! It’s a word game people are playing online. Each day, the game offers one new puzzle: Guess a five-letter English word correctly in six or fewer tries. After each guess, the game tells you which letters are correct, which are wrong, and which are the right letters in the wrong place. It’s fun! But why?
Games seem like trifles, and many are, which can make them difficult to take seriously as art or culture. Perhaps that’s why accounts of their success tend to focus on their peripheries. Wordle is easy to access, just a website you can visit from any browser or device without a download. It has what game designers sometimes call “juiciness,” a delightfulness of audiovisual response—in Wordle’s case, the way the game reveals the results of a guess letter by letter offers both drama and satisfaction. A charming backstory also underlies the game: A programmer made it for his partner, for love rather than money.
But none of these explanations captures the essence of Wordle’s seductive delight. In the game, you get six guesses to solve a puzzle. When it comes to the puzzle of Wordle, I’m going to solve it for you in four: its unoriginal design, its ritual comfort, its interpretive sharing mechanism, and—one that may disappoint you, but that you need to accept—the fact that it’s just a game, and games are fun.
TITLE
How ‘Vampire Survivors’ Went From Obscurity to 27,000 People Playing at Once
AUTHOR
Patrick Klepek
PUBLICATION
Waypoint: Games By Vice
YEAR
2022
What follows is, I’m aware, the tortured observations of a person who needs to log off. But I want to talk about the online dynamics of Wordle and what happens when things get very popular (hint: backlash!).
TITLE
How Wordle Became The Internet’s Omicron Pastime
AUTHOR
Steffi Cao
Ikran Dahir
PUBLICATION
Buzzfeed News
YEAR
2022