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Comment by mkdirp | Hacker News Reader

Slightly off-topic - I've seen wordle become very popular out of nowhere, and haven't been following it. I'm trying to understand how it would be played. Is this basically Lingo (a gameshow on Dutch TV) but for individuals and as an app?

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Why not try it and see for yourself? It's not an app, it's a website:

https://www.powerlanguage.co.uk/wordle/

Fellow Dutchman here, who initially wondered the same. Yes, it's Lingo, but:

- One word every day, same word for the whole world.

- You don't get a start letter

- No ballenbak :-( :-(

- No purpose

Note that as a fellow comment suggested, Lingo itself isn't an original show either. I don't know where the idea originated but certainly not on Dutch TV, so Wordle is simply a new iteration of an old idea. The innovation is in the accessibility and the low-key virality, not the game dynamics.

Not that it matters, but the Dutch Lingo is a local version of an originally US/Canadian game show, filmed in Vancouver but aired in the US, hosted by Ronald Reagan's adopted son. I watched far too many game shows as a child.

I did not know this. I had a look, and I'm surprised that the Dutch version is still running where the British version was only just revived, and the rest aren't running at all.

At this point, I'm actively avoiding finding out what it is to see how long I can remain deliberately out of the loop. For example, I didn't know it was a word game until I read your comment.

That could be a game in and of itself.

Yes, pretty much!

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