Lewdle Is a Naughtier Version of Wordle for Those Feeling a Little Immature

If you've been online lately, you've likely seen a number of the green, yellow, and gray grids that represent a person's Wordle journey for the day. The game, which forces users to guess a five letter word every day, has become a phenomon in recent weeks as more and more users have discovered it and begun to share their scores with friends or on social media. Now, a more lewd version of the game is also available.

Lewdle is a variation on Wordle that takes a particular set of five letter words and makes players guess which one is being used. Whereas Wordle is pulling from the entire library of five-letter words in English, Lewdle focuses only on words that could be perceived as dirty or inappropriate. The game is played exactly the same way, but there's obviously a much smaller pool of words to choose from.

Lewdle was created by Gary Whitta, a former editor-in-chief at PC Gamer who has since gone on to write scripts for movies like Rogue One: A Star Wars Story and The Book of Eli. Whitta has been hyping the release of this new version as if it was akin to the announcement that Microsoft had acquired Activision Blizzard. That turned out to be a little bit too much hype, even if Lewdle is a pretty solid joke.

It seems unlikely that Gary is anticipating that anyone plays and shares their Lewdle results the same way they share their results on Wordle. After all, the joke may be fun for a day or two, but it'll get old eventually.

Of course, Lewdle also has a much more limited appeal than Wordle, which is super sanitary and can be a point of discussion with pretty much anyone you know.

Lewdle is really just meant to ride the wave of Wordle's success, and there's nothing inherently wrong with that. Who knows? Maybe Lewdle will catch on the same way Wordle has, but Wordle remains the best version of the game for those who enjoy discussing their strategies and sharing their scores. If you're feeling slightly more immature, than Lewdle may be a good alternative.

Although Lewdle may be the naughtiest variation of Wordle to date, it's definitely not the first. As Wordle began picking up steam, a variety of copycat programs joined the market, as well as a number of variations on the game that appeal to a wide variety of interests. There's one version, for example, where you get more than six guesses, but the word keeps changing until there's only one word you could guess.

It's a much harder version of the game, and also much harder to comprehend, but it's just one example of the endless world of Wordle variants. Wordle remains the most popular, though, and that's because it took a pretty simple idea and executed it remarkably well.