Kid-Friendly ‘Wordle’ Is Designed For Little Spellers, Down To Font & Rewards
As short and sweet as the beloved Wordle is, it’s no walk in the park for kids.
Vancouver-based software engineer Christopher Porter was among the many parents who tried to turn Wordle into a daily family activity, only to discover that it wasn’t as fun for young players. It also wasn’t as educational as thought since it didn’t facilitate an understanding for new vocabulary.
The developer calls this fan-made puzzle Spellie but acknowledges that it’s entirely inspired by the hit game.
In the prototyping stage, Porter stumbled upon the discovery that “shorter words were actually harder than longer words,” since “you get less feedback,” he details on his blog Canadian Veggie. As such, little spellers stuck on a puzzle can now ask for hints, and letters need not be spelled out in the actual order.
To light up that reward system in young brains, Spellie throws in additional incentives for guessing. Users can collect over 400 emojis that are unlocked when they enter related words, a mini-game in its own right.
Spellie draws some emotional parallels with the popular brain teaser. Whereas the original was a gift from creator Josh Wardle to his wife, Porter designed the kid-friendly variation for his daughter Astrid, who wasn’t familiar with many of the solutions in Wordle.
Perhaps the greatest distinction is Spellie’s appearance. Porter gave the game its own unique user interface, partly to avoid copyright clashes with Wordle’s new owner. More than anything, Spellie is more welcoming for kids with its brighter colors and kid-friendly font choice.
The default keyboard is also in alphabetical order, though there’s a toggle to switch to the QWERTY variation.
Porter admits to not being completely satisfied with the colors and interface, and he’ll spend the coming weeks working on aesthetic changes.
“But we’re happy enough with where things are today to launch it,” he notes in his blog post. Play it here.
[via Vancouver Is Awesome and Screen Rant, images via Spellie]
