2022 · Puzzle

Absurdle

Absurdle is a word guessing game where players must identify a target word which is chosen from the largest existing subset of possible words, based on the already existing information from previous guesses.

Released: 9 January 2022
Platforms: Browser
Genres: Puzzle
Developers: —
Publishers: —
Perspective: Text

About

Absurdle is a 2022 web-based puzzle word game created by Sam Hughes, commonly known as qntm. It is a Wordle clone in which the player attempts to guess a five-letter word while the game changes the solution. Inspired by his other project Hatetris, he created Absurdle to experiment the passive-aggressiveness of the former game.

Keywords

guessing
wordle clone

The articlegameplay, story, development, reception

Gameplay

In Absurdle, the player attempts to guess a five-letter word, similarly to Wordle. However, while Wordle picks a single secret word at the beginning of the game, Absurdle gives the impression of picking a single secret word, but actually considers the entire list of all possible secret words which conform to the player's existing guesses. On each guess, Absurdle picks the word coloring which prunes the possible word list the least, giving the player the least possible amount of information and attempting to intentionally prolong the game. Unlike Wordle, Absurdle has infinite guesses.

Development

According to qntm, his inspiration to develop Absurdle came from Hatetris, one of his projects in which the game spawns the worst possible tetromino in a Tetris game. He wanted to take the difficulty of Hatetris and apply it to Wordle.

Reception

Ranking Absurdle as his favorite Wordle clone, Graham Smith of Rock Paper Shotgun felt the game's difficulty encouraged efficiency. Reviewers appreciated the ability to guess freely.