Want to ‘go back in time’ and play all the Wordles? Duke student’s archive lets you
UPDATE (April 15, 2022): Duke student Devang Thakkar’s Wordle archive has been taken down after The New York Times requested Thakkar do so, according to a post on the archive’s website. On the archive website, Thakkar said it was a “fun three months” running the archive, but “all good things must end.” Another Wordle archive, operated by Metzger Media, was previously shut down in March after The New York Times made a similar request.
Do you play Wordle?
The popular word game and brainteaser has taken social media by storm in recent weeks and months, even prompting The New York Times to purchase the game from creator Josh Wardle.
In the game, players are given six tries to guess the five-letter word of the day. There’s only one puzzle available each day — a feature some users appreciate. But others are frustrated by it, wishing they could play the game all day, without limits.
Enter the Wordle Archive, created by Devang Thakkar, a doctoral student in computational biology and bioinformatics at Duke University.
The archive features the exact Wordle puzzles that have been previously released by the official game — not just random words that other Wordle knock-offs have used — and users can play the backlog of puzzles in any order.
There are more than 200 games available in Thakkar’s archive.
So, how do you access and play the Wordle Archive? We have the answer to that and many more questions about Wordle below.
What is Wordle?
Wordle is a web-based puzzle and brainteaser game developed by Josh Wardle (yes, the creator of Wordle is named Wardle), a software engineer.
▪ The game does not require an app. You simply go to powerlanguage.co.uk/wordle in any web browser, whether that’s on a desktop or a mobile device.
▪ The game challenges you to guess a daily five-letter word in six tries.
▪ You can start each day’s game by typing any five-letter word. Wordle will then give you hints about which letters were correct, meaning which ones are or aren’t included in the final word. Green means the letter is in the right place, yellow means the letter is in the final word but not currently in the right place in your most recent guess and gray means the letter is not in the final word.
▪ You can keep guessing until you get that day’s word right or until you run out of tries (you get six tries for each puzzle), whichever comes first.
▪ Once you solve the puzzle or run out of tries, you can share your results with friends or on social media using the game’s “share” feature. (The share feature doesn’t reveal the word, which is the same for all users, just the colored grid that indicates your level of success.)
▪ The game also tracks how many puzzles you get right and how many guesses you use for each puzzle, displaying each statistic after you finish each day’s puzzle.
▪ There is only one puzzle released per day. The game resets at midnight each day, allowing users to solve the next puzzle.
The Charlotte Observer recently published a story explaining more information about Wordle and its popularity.
What is the Wordle Archive?
The Wordle Archive, created by Thakkar, is a backlog of every Wordle puzzle that has ever been released.
▪ Duke University’s research blog says Thakkar created the archive in a weekend after being introduced to Wordle by his roommate and wanting to access the older puzzles from the game.
▪ On the archive’s GitHub page — think of this sort of as the back-end of the game, where the code for the archive lives — Thakkar wrote that the archive is “simply a remembrance of Wordles past,” and that he wanted to create the archive “because I wanted to go back to Wordles that I had missed.”
▪ Unlike other Wordle knock-offs, Thakkar’s archive features the exact puzzles, with the same correct final words, released by the original Wordle game — not just random puzzles that are similar to the ones offered by Wordle.
▪ Thakkar says on his GitHub that he used a browser automation framework called Selenium to change the time on his computer to a previous day, allowing him to access the Wordle for that day. He used the program to “go back in time and obtain answers” to previous Wordles, which are now featured in the archive.
▪ The archive appears to update each day with the previous day’s puzzle. Today, when users are playing the 228th Wordle puzzle on the official Wordle site, past Wordles up to the 227th puzzle are available.
How do I access and use the Wordle Archive?
You can access Thakkar’s Wordle Archive at devangthakkar.com/wordle_archive/?1.
▪ Unlike the official Wordle, the archive does not have a daily limit, so users can play as many puzzles as they want at one time.
▪ Once you’re on the game page, you can choose to complete the puzzles in any order. The default page will take you to the first-ever Wordle, where you can then choose to work in chronological order by clicking “next” at the top of your screen, or you can choose to navigate to any number puzzle by clicking “choose.”
▪ The game functions the same way as the original Wordle, using the same colors to indicate whether a guess is correct.
▪ Also like the original Wordle, you can share your results from the archive using the “share” feature that appears after you finish a puzzle.
What about Wordle’s new owner?
Wordle was in the news this week as The New York Times announced Monday that it had acquired Wordle from creator Wardle for a price “in the low seven figures.”
It’s not entirely clear at this point how the change will affect the game.
▪ CNN has reported that Jordan Cohen, executive director at the Times, has said that the paper does not have “set plans for the game’s future,” but in a statement announcing the change, Wardle mentioned that the game will move to the Times site.
▪ Wardle also said in his statement that he is working with The New York Times to make sure that existing Wordle players’ winning streaks and playing history “will be preserved.”
For now, Wordle is still housed at powerlanguage.co.uk/wordle, and game play appears to be unchanged at this point.
Are there other ways to play Wordle?
There are several Wordle-like games available, both in web-based formats like the original game, as well as app-based formats.
▪ Thakkar told the Duke research blog that he developed his archive based on another Wordle project, WordMaster by Katherine Peterson. While Peterson’s version functions nearly the same as Thakkar’s archive, it generates random words and does not feature the exact puzzles used on the official Wordle game.
▪ The Verge reported Tuesday that users can save the original Wordle game’s webpage to their computers, giving you access to a “complete copy” of the game that still cycles to the new puzzle each day.
To download Wordle to your computer, navigate to Wordle at powerlanguage.co.uk/wordle, then right-click and click “Save as” to save the game. You can then open up the game in your computer’s files and play it offline — allowing you to play if you don’t have internet access, for instance.
Saving the game to your computer could be helpful after Wordle migrates to The New York Times. While the Times has said that Wordle will “initially remain free,” you could try to maintain your access to the game through this work-around.
This story was originally published February 2, 2022 at 2:16 PM with the headline "Want to ‘go back in time’ and play all the Wordles? Duke student’s archive lets you."
