'Tis a daily puzzlement with online games
Every now and then you come across something on the Internet that seems to have value or is worthwhile. The “erdle” craze fits that bill for me. These are online games that refresh themselves every day and are designed to provide you with a few minutes of entertainment in an otherwise hectic world. Wordle (https://www. nytimes.com/games/wordle/ index.html) is the first of these of which I became acquainted. Your challenge in Wordle is to guess the word of the day. The word is always random and five letters long. The puzzle designers avoid using plurals or tenses on the words.
For those who have mastered Wordle, there is Quordle (quordle.com) which enables you to play four Wordle puzzles at a time. You are given nine guesses to solve the four puzzles, which can be quite a challenge.
For the music lovers, there are two games designed with a musical theme: Heardle (https:// www.spotify.com/heardle/) is a take on the old “Name That Tune” contest. You get a very short snippet of a song from which you must guess the song. If you need to, you can add additional seconds of the song up to a total of 16 seconds. The difference between Heardle and “Name That Tune” is that the song snippet is from the very beginning of the recording, not from a more recognizable place in the melody line. Byrdle (byrdle.net) has a choral music theme. Rather than guessing a song, it provides a six-letter word puzzle that is related in some way to choral musical terminology. It could be a composer’s last name, or a song dynamic, or anything else related to choral music.
If you are into geography, Globle (globle-game. com) is the game for you. Your challenge is to guess the country of the day from among all the countries of the world. As you randomly guess a country, the puzzle indicates to you if your latest guess is cold or warm in relation to the country you are trying to guess. You continue to guess until you identify the target country. This is a great way to learn about world geography, and, for me, tends to make me investigate further into some of the lesser-known countries.
Other games of this same genre are out there. These are the ones that have stood out for me.
As mentioned before, these puzzles refresh themselves every midnight and have become a source of quick, harmless fun each day. Among my family and friends, they are a little piece of fun and offers up some friendly competition as we share our results with each other. Be sure to check them out!
By the way, do you know the best way to get stable internet? Install a modem in your barn.
The column represents the thoughts and opinions of Johnny McNally. Opinion columns are NOT the opinion of the Navasota Examiner. Johnny McNally is Grimes County’s Best Dressed Businessman advocating for Grimes County and writes a bi-weekly column for the Navasota Examiner.