Vancouver man makes kid-friendly version of Wordle - Action News
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British Columbia

Vancouver man makes kid-friendly version of Wordle

A Vancouver software engineer trying to play the popular word game Wordle with his daughter has wound up co-creating a more kid-friendly version called Spellie.

Christopher Porter says his daughter was struggling with Wordle words like ulcer and cynic

Christopher Porter co-founded Spellie, a kid friendly version of Wordle, so his daughter could play too. (Submitted by Christopher Porter)

Christopher Porter's daughter looked forward to guessing her five letter Wordle each day, but he says words like "cynic" and "ulcer" weren't coming to her, so he and a friend, a software engineer like himself, decided to co-createa new gamecalled Spellie.

"I think the third day we tried it together, "proxy" came up and I was like, that's it, we need to build a Wordle junior version," he said.

Wordle is a popular online word game launched last October by U.S. software engineer Josh Wardlewho wanted to make a new game for his wife. Players havesix attempts to guess a five-letter word, with colour-coded feedback given for each guess.

Now,millions play it every day.

Christopher Porter said he started playing Wordle with his daughter and it became a bonding experience so he decided to make her a kid friendly version. (Submitted by Christopher Porter)

Porter says he and his daughter started to play Wordle as a bonding exercise.

"This game has so much there."

But words like "query" and "proxy"weren'teasy for his daughter to guess. And so, Spellie was born.

Porter says the rules are the same but the words, like "dream, "love" and "flower,"are simpler.

"The word list is inherently smaller.These are all words that any Grade 3 or Grade 4 student can understand."

Porter says they have only been working on it for a month and already there are nearly 6,000 online users a day. He says they never intended for it to be this big.

"We really just wanted to build something that our friends and family and our own kids would enjoy playing."

Mostly, people have been finding out about it by word of mouth, he says.

Wardle just sold Wordleto The New York Times for seven figures.

Porter says he can't see himself selling it unless maybe he's offered seven figures.

"You never say no, but our intention is to keep this free and ad-free," he said. "We're just trying to bring joy to families and young spellers."

With files from The Early Edition