The Charlotte Observer Service Journalism desk is committed to providing answers to questions that matter to you and your community. In this space, reader-submitted inquiries -- such as the one below -- will be investigated each day by our team of reporters. Less than a month after the popular word puzzle game Wordle was acquired by the New York Times, a new game with a similar name – Worldle – has captured the attention of geography nerds. The map-based game was launched Jan. 30 by a French game developer who invited players to “guess a new country every day!” Two weeks later, the developer announced on Twitter that the game, originally intended to be a “small side project,” had reached more than 500,000 players. Where to find Worldle Worldle is available online at worldle.teuteuf.fr. Like Wordle, the game saves your progress, even if you close your browser. How to play Worldle The goal of Worldle is to identify a country based on its shape shown in the game in six tries or less. After each attempt, you’ll be shown the distance, direction and proximity between your guess and the correct answer. The default unit of distance is kilometers, but it can be changed to miles in the game’s settings. You can also hide or rotate the image of the country for more of a challenge. Other Wordle spinoffs Not too long after Wordle swept the internet, spin off games emerged, each adding their own twist to the original. Here are a few games similar to Wordle: Custom Wordle: This option allows you to create your own word of any length for your friends to guess. Dordle: Instead of solving one puzzle, players have to solve two at the same time. Every guess applies to both words, but you get seven tries to guess the answers. Nerdle: In this game, players try to guess an eight-figure mathematical equation using a mix of numbers and symbols. Star Wordle: This game is just like Wordle, except all the words are related to Star Wars. Taylordle: Also just like Worldle, but Taylor Swift-themed.
