- Gary Whitta, screenwriter, was inspired by Wordle’s success.
- He wanted to add his own spin, so his version only contains lewd five letter words.
- Whitta stated that Lewdle is home to over 800,000 players who rush to guess the NSFW word of the day.
When screenwriter Gary WhittaHe was amazed to see people sharing a grid of colored squares via social media.
The images showed people’s scores. WordleThe viral word-guessing game has taken Twitter by storm. Whitta, who was himself sucked into this game, has been working on the movie. “Rogue One”And the Disney show “Star Wars Rebels,”I started to think about how to make it more interesting.
The latest was revealed in a Line of games based on WordleBut with a twist: Whitta’s version, created with games developer Adam NickersonThe slang is only for rude wordsLewdleEach day, players have six chances of guessing a lewd five letter word. Most of these are colloquial terms that refer to genitalia and sex acts.
“Often my mind goes to these kinds of lewd and lascivious places, and I don’t think I’m the only one,” Whitta said. “I think that rude words bring out the inner kid in all of us.”After you’ve discovered that “Sweardle”Lewdle was also taken.
Insider was told by Whitta that Nickerson and he were inspired to work with Wordle because of its huge success. “lightning in a bottle.”
Brooklyn-based software engineer Josh Wardle invented Wordle in order to play with his friend. But he released Wordle to the general public in October 2021. According to “”The ConversationIt’s a trending topic on Twitter and people can share the results with others without sharing the word.
—Jane Merrick (@janemerrick23) January 28, 2022
Lewdle also makes waves on social media. Whitta claims that Lewdle now has 880,000 daily users after just a week of existence. Whitta spoke to Insider January 27. She stated that 10,000 people were currently playing the game in real-time. A quick Twitter search will bring up hundreds of results from people who enjoy the irreverent nature of the game.
—Jared Linden (@jaredlinden) January 28, 2022
—(((Princess of Whales))) (@PrincesaBallena) January 27, 2022
—PineKona 🌲 (@KonaSlater) January 24, 2022
Lewdle was an effort of both partners. While Nickerson worked on the technical backend of the game, Whitta began compiling a comprehensive glossary of rude terms with his wife. This is a difficult task, as most lewd words require five letters to be written.
Lewdle makes use of words from various dialects, including those from the UK, Whitta’s home country, to keep the game moving. Sometimes this has confused American players. This was evident on January 27, when Lewdle’s word for the day was “minge,”British slang for female genitalia, pubic hair.
—Tampa Bay Gamer (@TampaBayGamer) January 28, 2022
Whitta claimed that the UK is the second-largest userbase after the US. He didn’t find it surprising because “British people love rude words.”
Even factoring in regional slang, Lewdle is still at a disadvantage — the original Wordle has an almost infinite number of words to choose from, whereas Lewdle will run out of words much more quickly. Whitta said that he’s not too concerned about it. “Wordle will have a much longer shelf-life, but how long can we reasonably expect Lewdle to last? It’s kind of a novelty, isn’t it?”He said.
“In a few weeks, the next shiny object that the internet dangles in front of us will come along, so I’m not concerned about there being an infinitely long dictionary of words,” Whitta said. “We’re closing in on a million users in a week, so it’s been really, really fun whatever happens next.”
You can find more stories like these from Insider’s Digital Culture Team here.