Worldle geography puzzle praised for highlighting Ukraine crisis
The timely decision led to images of the Eastern European country flooding social media on Sunday with statements of solidarity
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Your support makes all the difference.Users of the spin-off puzzle game Worldle have commended the developers for what they perceive as a concerted effort to draw attention to the attack on Ukraine by Russian forces.
Worldle, an online geography game similar to the hit word puzzle Wordle, was created by a French game developer and launched on 22 January. Within two weeks, it had attracted more than half a million players.
The map-based puzzle presents the silhouette of a country and offers users five attempts to identify the country in question.
Successful players can share their score to social media platforms such as Twitter in the same way that Wordle players can.
And on Sunday, the team behind the game chose to spotlight Ukraine, a decision which saw users flooding Twitter with images of the country.
Some users noted that the developers had chosen to include all of Ukraine, including Crimea - a region which was annexed by Russia in 2014.
Others added the Ukrainian flag, blue and yellow hearts to represent the colours of the country’s flag, and the words ‘Slava Ukrani’ meaning ‘Victory to Ukraine’ to show their support and solidarity for the Eastern European country.
One user wrote: “I’ll say it louder for the folks in the back. All of this is Ukraine 🇺🇦. Worldle knows what’s up.”
“Hat tip to the folks at Worldle today. Glory to Ukraine”, another wrote.
Wordle was originally created by Josh Wardle, a software engineer from Wales living in New York, for his partner Palak Shah who loves puzzles.
A play on his last name, Wordle was released on an open-access basis in October and became an overnight success around the globe.
At the beginning of February, however, the game was purchased by the New York Times “for an undisclosed price in the low seven figures”.
Since the sale, the game has been accused of being “too hard” and “elitist”, with one writer for The Independent describing it as “pretentious”.
UK players have also become frustrated with the US spelling of certain words, such as “favor”.
“FAVOR?!?!?! REALLY??? It's FAVOUR !!!”, was just one frustrated response to the preference for US spelling in the game.
Despite this, the game currently attracts around two million users every day.
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