word games

NYT targets Street View Worldle game in fight to wipe out Wordle clones

A world of difference? —

Worldle creator surprised by fight, refuses to bow to NYT.

Ashley Belanger – May 31, 2024 3: 58 pm UTC

NYT targets Street View Worldle game in fight to wipe out Wordle clones

The New York Times is fighting to take down a game called Worldle, according to a legal filing viewed by the BBC, in which The Times apparently argued that the geography-based game is “creating confusion” by using a name that’s way too similar to Wordle.

Worldle is “nearly identical in appearance, sound, meaning, and imparts the same commercial impression” to Wordle, The Times claimed.

The Times bought Wordle in 2022, paying software developer Josh Wardle seven figures for the daily word-guessing puzzle game after its breakout success during the pandemic. Around the same time, Worldle was created—along with more than 100 other Wordle spinoffs offering niche alternatives to Wordle, including versions in different languages and completely different games simply using the name construction ending in “-le.” The Times filed for a Wordle trademark the day after buying the game and by March 2022, it started sending takedown requests.

Today, millions visit the Times site daily to play Wordle, but the Times is seemingly concerned that some gamers might be diverted to play Worldle instead, somehow mistaking the daily geography puzzle—where players have six chances to find a Google Street View location on a map—with the popular word game.

This fear seems somewhat overstated, since a Google search for “Worldle” includes Wordle in the top two results and suggests that searchers might be looking for Wordle, but a search for Wordle does not bring up Worldle in the top results.

Despite Google seemingly favoring the popular game in results and likely because of Wordle‘s enormous success, The Times’ litigiousness over the Wordle brand seems to be rising this year as the company looks to rapidly expand its profitable games platform to increase subscriptions. In March, 404 Media reported when The Times began more aggressively taking aim at hundreds of Wordle clones, sending DMCA notices to defend the Wordle trademark.

Some developers, like Chase Wackerfuss, the creator of Reactle, immediately took down their games, feeling it wasn’t worth getting into an intellectual property (IP) battle with the Times, 404 Media reported. The same thing happened with the Wordle Archive, which confirmed in 2022 that access to previous Wordle puzzles was shut down because “sadly, the New York Times has requested that the Wordle Archive be taken down.”

“To me, Wordle is like Tetris or a deck of cards. It’s such a simple premise,” Wackerfuss told 404 Media. He pointed to unique games that wouldn’t exist without building on Wordle‘s premise, including “a Taylor Swift version, a version in all different types of languages. The New York Times would never build those, so I’m not sure why they feel like we’re encroaching on their IP.”

But Worldle’s developer, Kory McDonald, is not backing down just because the Times threatened legal action.

McDonald told the BBC that he was disappointed in the Times targeting Worldle. He runs the game all by himself, attracting approximately 100,000 players monthly, and said that “most of the money he makes from the game goes to Google because he uses Google Street View images, which players have to try to identify.” The game can only be played through a web browser and is supported by ads and annual subscriptions that cost less than $12.

“I’m just a one-man operation here, so I was kinda surprised,” McDonald told the BBC, while vowing to defend his game against the Times’ attempt to take it down.

“There’s a whole industry of [dot]LE games,” McDonald told the BBC. “Wordle is about words, Worldle is about the world, Flaggle is about flags.”

It’s not clear how strong a case the Times would have to enforce the takedown or if it will target other “-le” games next. The list of potential next targets is long and includes a completely different game also called Worldle, where players guess the country based on its outline. Wackerfuss told 404 Media in March that it seemed like the Times was chasing down every lead.

The Times is not commenting on the legal action, the BBC reported, but in the past has targeted Wordle clones that either use the Wordle trademark or its copyrighted gameplay without authorization or permission.

Because McDonald’s game has vastly different gameplay than Wordle, the Times may be limited to only arguing that the similar-sounding names are creating confusion for an average user.

Now it seems possible that McDonald’s fight, if successful, could encourage others to resist takedowns over the Wordle trademark.

McDonald doesn’t think that “world” sounding too much like “word” is an issue, but even if the Times wins the fight, he intends to keep his game online.

“Worst-case scenario, we’ll change the name, but I think we’ll be OK,” McDonald told the BBC.

Cryptmaster is a dark, ridiculous RPG test of your typing and guessing skills

dungeon crawler, dungeon crawlers, gaming, RPG, text games, ultima underground, wizardry, word games / Mike M. / May 11, 2024

A different kind of text adventure —

Ask a necromancer to lick a shield. Type out “HIT,” “YELL,” “ZAP.” It’s funny.

Kevin Purdy – May 11, 2024 11: 00 am UTC

Cryptmaster screenshot showing the player typing out — Enlarge / Sometimes you gotta get your nose in there to remember the distinct aroma of 1980s RPG classics.

Akupara Games

There are people who relish the feeling of finally nailing down a cryptic clue in a crossword. There are also people unduly aggravated by a puzzlemaster’s puns and clever deceptions. I’m more the latter kind. I don’t even play the crossword—or Wordle or Connections or Strands—but my wife does, and she’ll feed me clues. Without fail, they leave me in some strange state of being relieved to finally get it, yet also keyed up and irritated.

Cryptmaster, out now on Steam, GOG, and Itch.io for Windows, seems like the worst possible game for people like me, and yet I dig it. It is many things at once: a word-guessing game, a battle typing (or shouting) challenge, a party-of-four first-person grid-based dungeon crawler, and a text-prompt adventure, complete with an extremely goofy sense of humor. It’s also in stark black and white. You cannot fault this game for a lack of originality, even while it evokes Wizardry, Ultima Underground, and lots of other arrow-key-moving classics, albeit with an active tongue-in-cheek filter.

Cryptmaster announcement trailer.

The Cryptmaster in question has woken up four role-playing figures—fighter, rogue, bard, and wizard—to help him escape from his underground lair to the surface, for reasons that must be really keen and good. As corpses, you don’t remember any of your old skills, but you can guess them. What’s a four-letter action that a fighter might perform, or a three-letter wizard move? Every time you find a box or treasure, the Cryptmaster opens it, gives you a letter count, then lets you ask for clues. “SMELL,” you type, and he says it has that wonderful old-paper smell. “LOOK,” and he notes that there are writings and drawings on one side. Guess “SCROLL,” and he adds those letters to your characters’ next ability clues. Guess wrong, well, better luck next time.

Okay, so none of my characters can get really good prices through group buying, got it.

Akupara Games
Gelatinous cubes, of course, but this one makes you think on the fly about which verbs you can use.

Akupara Games
A lot of the characters in Cryptmaster are, well, characters.

Akupara Games
In case you didn’t get enough word games from the main gameplay, there is a mini card game you can play with its own letters-and-words mechanics.

Akupara Games
Uncovering more verbs reveals more of your dead characters’ past lives.

Akupara Games

Once you’ve got a few verbs, you’ll want to learn them and figure out how they fit together, because you’ll have to fight some things. Combat is all about typing but also remembering your words and juggling cooldowns, attack, defense, and ability costs. Strike with your fighter, backstab with the rogue, fling a spell from the wizard, and have your bard reset the fighter’s cooldown, all while a baddie very slowly winds up and swings at random party members. Some fights can be avoided by maneuvering around them, but successful fights also let you choose another letter to potentially reveal new verbs. Apologies for the somewhat vague descriptions here, but I’m trying not to give away any words.

There are a few other mechanics to learn, like smashing wall-crawling bugs to gather their ability-powering essence, and defiling shrines to better suit your undead needs. But let’s talk about the Cryptmaster. Saying the character is “voiced” by the game’s writer and co-designer, Lee Williams, truly undersells it. As with some of the best adventure games, Williams and coder/designer/artist Paul Hart have anticipated so, so many things you might type in when prompted to guess, ask, or interact with their gloomy little world. Maybe there’s a point at which the Cryptmaster—a far more dour version of the HBO Cryptkeeper eternally disappointed in you—stops being surprising in his responses. I have yet to find it after a few hours of play. (How the team pulled off such a huge response range is detailed in an interview at Game Developer.)

Go ahead and recapture some of your childhood sense of wonder: Swear at the Cryptmaster. You won’t be disappointed.

You can play the game in turn-based mode, removing the pressure of remembering and typing out actions, but it’s not the recommended setting. While I played with only typing and relished the chance to give my mechanical keyboard a workout, you can also play with voice prompts. If you’re not sure if this is the kind of game for you, there’s a free demo on Steam that should clue you in.

Was that a pun? Maybe. Cryptmaster gave me a bit more appreciation for word-guessing games—the kind with enjoyments that are not easily, shall we say, spelled out.

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