All the Wordles I know about (including some I didn't), and some other games

A modern Wordle made from various sizes of coloured Wordle tiles

Here's a list of Wordle games. Back in the old days a Wordle was a word cloud with the size of the word indicating its prominence (how often it appeared) in a piece of text. Not any more...

NEWER: Worldles - all known Wordles so far. 177 entries ordered by 70 different languages and a table for variant English-language Wordles with varied gameplay. Does make my list below seem a bit pathetic haha https://rwmpelstilzchen.gitlab.io/wordles/

NEW: Word Race - play a Wordle with a stranger https://metzger.media/games/word-race/

A. Wordle type games

1. Wordle
https://www.powerlanguage.co.uk/wordle/
The original, one a day. Play it on a browser on your desktop or on your phone (here's how to add it to your phone's homescreen).

2a. Wordle Archive
https://metzger.media/games/wordle-archive/?levels=select
Play previous Wordle games online

2b. Word Race
https://metzger.media/games/word-race/
Compete with a stranger against the clock to uncover the same word

2c. Six letter Wordle
https://metzger.media/games/wordle-archive/?random=play&letters=6

3. Word Master
https://octokatherine.github.io/word-master/
As many Wordles as you like a day. If you click on the settings cogwheel on the left (I didn't even spot it as using a laptop not phone) you can change the difficulty level.

4. Sweardle
https://www.sweardle.com/
Not surprisingly, this game features four letter words. And all of them are sweary

5. Primal
https://github.andrewt.net/primal/
A number version - each 5 digit guess must be a prime number. Hate it ;)

6. Absurdle
https://qntm.org/files/wordle/index.html
You can have as many guesses as you like. The computer is trying to stall you and might change the word until the dwindling letter combinations available force a particular word to emerge (info).

7. Qiktionary
https://apps.apple.com/ca/app/qiktionary-the-4-letter-game/id972072632
App for iPad, guess the four letter word.

8. HelloWordl
https://hellowordl.net/
As many goes as you like and as many letters as you like (up to 11). Good name. You can also get a link to share to an individual puzzle to challenge a friend.

9. Lewdle
https://www.lewdlegame.com/
Rude words only.

10. Queerdle
https://queerdle.com/
"Words vary in length between 4 and 8 characters and do not contain spaces or punctuation. Occasionally two words may be put together if I feel like it. Queerness cannot be contained! Letters can be repeated."

11. Wordle Unlimited
https://www.wordleunlimited.com/

12. Ordle
https://evancharlton.github.io/ordle/
Norwegian-language version. Choose between Bokmål and Nynorsk language variants. (See also B3 for other languages)

13. Brdl
https://brdl.alex.gd/
"Bird codes and banding codes are four-letter nicknames for birds" - if you know these then this is the game for you. More explanation here https://birdcodes.alex.gd/

B. Round-up articles about Wordle and variants

B1. The 7 Best Wordle Alternatives to Get Your Puzzle Fix
https://www.makeuseof.com/best-wordle-alternatives/
This post introduced me to a few others I'd not encountered including Letterle (guess the single letter!) and Byrdle (5 letter words that are choral themed).

B2. Wordle Alternatives
https://stackdiary.com/wordle-alternatives/
References several above and others I'd not heard of including Evil Wordle (possibly quite similar to Absurdle) and Worle (guessing UK town names).

B3. Play Wordle in Other Languages
https://blog.duolingo.com/wordle-in-other-languages/
At time of writing it's French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Swedish and German.

B4. Worldles - all known Wordles so far. 177 entries ordered by 70 different languages and a table for variant English-language Wordles with varied gameplay. https://rwmpelstilzchen.gitlab.io/wordles/

 

C. Other free online games

C1. Sudoku
https://sudoku.com/
Plenty of other free online versions of this game, and phone apps too.

C2. Solitaire
https://www.google.com
Just type Solitaire into Google's search engine and a mini player will appear (possibly not if you have ad blocker switched on though, so you may need to disable that).

C3. Google's games compendium
Type in dreidel to spin the dreidel, Pac Man to play..., tic tac toe, snake, spin a fidget spinner etc. Click the down arrow below the game to open up more options, including a big list of animal sounds.

Fives - a game I played with my parents when little

I can't remember when I started playing this with my parents, probably in single digits. It's not the most thrilling of games, compared with the excitements of iPads and games centres but it's quite a satisfying logic puzzle, and can probably be adapted for younger children (see below).

• It's a two person game.
• Each person thinks of a five-letter word where no letter is the same, eg house, knife, apron, films etc (generally we excluded plurals but of course "she films the event" gets round that!)
• Write your word down on a piece of paper, kept hidden from opponent, also write, on same piece of paper the alphabet in full.
• The first player takes it in turn to say another five letter word (anything except proper names and this time it can include words with the same letter in multiple times, such as PUPPY) and the second player says how many letters in that word are also in their word, but not which one*.

Eg, your hidden word (my target) is FILMS

• In my first guess I say POPPY - there are no letters in common, and I can cross off O, P and Y from my list of letters.
• (Then you have your turn)
• In my second guess I say PUPPY (I already know that P and Y aren't in this, so this lets me determine if O is there or not - again no letters in common and in two goes I've crossed off four letters, two of them vowels.
• (It's your go)
• I guess POEMS - you tell me there are two letters in common with my word, though I don't know which. I know P and O are not in it, leaving E, M and S so I need to find a word to help me work out which.
• (Your go)
• I try POESY (we're allowed archaic words) and you tell me there's only 1 letter, but is it the E or the S?
• (Your go)
• I try SOPPY - you say 1 letter is there, so I know that S is IN your word, definitely, still have to find a way to guess whether the other letter is E or M.
• (Your go)
• I try QUEEN - you say no letters, so I know it's not the E (and therefore must be the M) and I've also eliminated Q, U and N as well (in total E, N, O, P, Q, U and Y eliminated)
• and so on... 
• You can continue playing until someone gets their word or carry on until both people have.

In fact PUPPY and POPPY were pretty much how we always started the game, so we might as well call it the puppy opening gambit :)
 
Strategies
Sometimes you try a word with lots of common letters, to open things up a bit and find new some letters to work with, other times you're playing a much tighter game (eg POPPY and PUPPY) to try and pin down or eliminate a particular letter. Sometimes you might want to check something and use a word to confirm you're right about a particular letter, eg at the stage I've left it at the word OPENS should have only 1 letter in common with yours. This doesn't really tell me anything new (I already knew from SOPPY that it had an S in it, but confirms that S is and O, P, E and N aren't - assuming I'd not made a mistake).

*Adaptations for smaller people
For younger children who perhaps don't have a wealth of 5-letter words to hand, you could let them pick any word they like, and take turns in saying other words. Or you could just say which letter is there (eg S is there, but O, P, E and N aren't), or even which position it's in in the word ("the letter S is at the end of my word"). You could just guess letters ("is J in it?" and so on).

You could also do a variation of hangman but instead of hangman call it something less murderous, like swing game, so that with each turn (whether or not successful) you're building a swing for a stick figure to swing on.

In both games - fives, and 'swings' you get to see a copy of the full alphabet in front of you which possibly helps with letter familiarity. 'Swings' might be a good way to show the importance of vowels, and letter frequency. Fives has a bit of 'strategic thinking' about it, if played as outlined above, so possibly needs more adaptation for little children.