I made a thing

The idea: a Wordle-like#

Wordle spawned a lot of spin-offs: Nerdle, Worldle, Heardle, Octordle, Sedecordle, Absurdle, Chessle, Sweardle, Klingon Wordle and many more. So I thought I’d make one too.

Wordle, but with ASCII#

ASCII code chart

Instead of guessing letters A–Z, you apply numerical movements to a starting word, based on each letter’s ASCII code. For example:

  • A + 1 = B
  • A + 4 = E
  • Z − 1 = Y
  • Z − 20 = F

The basics#

Asciimo at the start of a game

  • A daily word game, refreshed each day
  • The same start word, end word and movement values for everyone
  • 5-letter words
  • A collection of 15 movement values to pick from: 5 correct ones and 10 random ones
  • Feedback using standard Wordle conventions:
    • Green – correct movement value applied in the correct place
    • Yellow – correct movement value, but in the wrong place
    • Red – incorrect movement

Feedback tiles

Example#

Start with SPLIT and apply the right movement values to reach TEETH:

SPLIT to TEETH example

StartMovementEnd
S+1T
P−11E
L−7E
I+11T
T−12H

Challenges#

  • Daily word generation
  • Making it fun and challenging
  • Free hosting

Implementation#

  • C#
  • Blazor WASM front end
  • Hosted on GitHub Pages

Feedback#

After people tried it out, the main feedback was:

  • Add a How To!
  • Allow movement values to be applied out of order
  • Animated transitions
  • It was too easy to spam guesses to find the answer

Updates#

Based on that feedback:

  • A tile can now be locked by double clicking
  • Total guesses are limited to 3
  • Added a running total of the movement values
  • Added a time limit

Locked tile, guess counter, movement total and timer

Try it: asciimo.gg#

Asciimo game screenshot

Give it a go at asciimo.gg!

Future improvements#

  • Share an obfuscated score (like Wordle’s emoji grid)
  • Daily leaderboard
  • UI improvements
  • Make it fun(ner)