Binary Wordle

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

Solving strategy and game triviality

  • Core insight: with binary digits, any puzzle is solvable in at most 2 guesses.
    • Common “optimal” strategy: guess 00000 (or 11111), then flip every non‑green cell on the second guess.
    • Others point out you can start with any pattern; any non‑green cell must flip, so it’s still always solvable in 2.
  • Minor nitpicking over wording: “in 2 steps” vs “within 2 steps” (since you might solve it in 1).
  • Some players initially felt proud of solving in 2–3 guesses, then realized 2 is guaranteed.
  • Question about yellow cells: they appear only if you mix 0s and 1s on the first guess; in practice they’re redundant because “yellow = flip it” just like grey.

Humor and binary jokes

  • The game is widely read as an absurdist joke rather than a serious puzzle.
  • Many classic binary jokes appear:
    • “There are 10 types of people…” and variants.
    • Puns on “two attempts” vs “10 attempts”.
    • People claiming it took “10 tries” and riffing on that.
  • Some enjoy the fact that both inputs and the game’s logic are “binary” in every way.

Comparisons and variants

  • Compared to Mastermind/Wordle; consensus is this is much simpler.
  • One thread discusses “easy” vs “hard” Mastermind/Wordle feedback (whether positions of correct/wrong letters are revealed).
  • Several related games are shared:
    • Hex or 8‑digit hex “Wordle” variants.
    • Number‑based Wordles (rationals, factors, linear equations).
    • Other joke Wordles (e.g., horse anagrams).

Design suggestions and difficulty tweaks

  • Some suggest:
    • Fewer guesses or longer bitstrings.
    • Matching based on longer substrings to make it nontrivial.
    • A share button and showing guess counts in binary.
    • Using only two rows, since only two guesses are ever needed.

Implementation and UX

  • Minor keyboard‑focus bug reported (especially after “play again”).
  • Positive comments on the UI, animation, and the commitment to the gag.

Technical tangents

  • Brief digression into whether 0s vs 1s use different energy, Landauer’s principle, and word sizes (why 5‑bit “wordle” is not a real computer word).