Cash Cow
Wordle’s party game is definitely not bringing the party
If Wordle wasn’t on its way to being uncool, this board game rendition might just push it over the edge.
In one of the most obvious cash grabs we’ve seen in a while, Hasbro and New York Times Games are making Wordle: The Party Game, the board game version of the hit puzzle game. If you’ve been living under a rock, Wordle is the online guessing game where you try to identify a five-letter word with clues revealed after every attempt.
The game quickly went viral last year as Twitter grew filled with people flexing their results in a never-ending feed of gray, yellow, and green boxes. Eventually, The New York Times Company acquired Wordle from its original creator, Josh Wardle, thereby making it thoroughly uncool. At least it’s still free-to-play though.
Now, the New York Times is teaming up with Hasbro to bring us a board game version, which we have to wonder who really asked for. Milking your cash cow as much as possible makes sense, but doing so may just make your cow thoroughly uncool.
Introducing team mode — Thankfully, Wordle: The Party Game maintains at least the essence of the original. Players have to guess a five-letter word that’s been chosen by the Wordle Host. You’ll get the same yellow and green indicators to let you know if a letter is correct, incorrect, or has been placed in the wrong spot.
The board game’s designers deserve some credit here, because they’re amping up the social element with different formats, including classic, fast, timed, and team formats. In the team format, teams of two compete against another team, combining forces to guess the other team’s word.
We’re no board game designers here, but we definitely have a fair number of Wordle reps among the ranks at Input. We’re having some trouble seeing how Wordle would translate into a board game though, considering it’s not really a social game.
Your next board game night — You can already preorder Wordle: The Party Game, but it’s officially going to hit the shelves on October 1 at Hasbro’s website, Amazon, Target, and Walmart. At least Hasbro and The New York Times are pricing the board game at a very affordable $20, so it’s not like you’re going to lose out on too much when it eventually gets shelved to collect dust.
