You can only play Wordle once per day, and everyone gets the same puzzle to solve each day, which makes it a fun and friendly competition you can have with your friends and coworkers. (And creates a lot of debate as to best strategies you should use to win.) Whether you’re a Wordle newbie or a seasoned player, here are a few tried-and-true Wordle strategies to get you started on the road to mastering the game. Some nerdy types have run algorithms to find the best Wordle starting words—and words like SOARE, SLATE, SAUCE, and RAISE are among the options they project will bring you to the winning answer fastest. Note: If you play Wordle in hard mode (you can pick it under the settings icon on the top right of the screen), you will have to use any letters you discover in every guess after that, so you can’t use this strategy. (Inverse.com posts clues and lets you scroll down to see the solution, if you want, and a Twitter account called Wordlinator was suspended for spoiling the games before they even went live.) If you’re looking to get a little bit of help—but not the solution—you could use Scrabble word finder tools, which allow you to filter based on starting and ending letters, or put in any letters you’ve found with a couple of wild cards, too. And you can always…ahem…play the game first on one device or web browser to make sure you have the winning word before you play it on your “real” account. But if you can’t get enough, you’ll find several different Wordle alternatives out there to try: Word Master — Basically, it’s Wordle, but without the one-puzzle-a-day limit, for people who want to practice their skills. Hello Wordl — This one lets you play as many games as you’d like, so you can sharpen your skills. You can also use the slider at the top of the screen to increase (or decrease) the challenge by solving longer or shorter words, rather than the standard Wordle five. Sweardle — If you have a dirty mouth, this version lets you use all those four-letter words that likely won’t show up in the original puzzle. Seven Wordles — Speed and accuracy are both important in this version, where you see how long it takes for you to complete seven Wordle puzzles. (Note that you have to tap letters on the screen, so this works better as a mobile game than on a computer.)
