How to play Mathler? Everything to know about the hidden calculation game

Wordle's innumerable spin-offs have something to tickle everyone's fancy. Mathler, for instance, is designed particularly to appeal to math lovers the world over. It's perfect for those who liked the novelty of the idea but didn't particularly connect with the word-guessing aspect of the game.

Wordsmiths have been undeniably obsessed with Wordle since it took the world by storm in October last year. The game's popularity skyrocketed with its virality and even led to a high-profile acquisition by The New York Times at the end of January. Its massive popularity continues to persist, albeit on a smaller scale than before.

Even if people find themselves tired of the original game, these new iterations of keep renewing the general public interest.

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Rules and guidelines of Mathler

Designed by self-proclaimed indie hacker Daniel Tait, Mathler was released in early February, right on the heels of the New York Times acquisition. In this math-based Wordle clone, players need to guess the "hidden calculation."

It follows the same format as its inspiration, where players get six chances to guess the correct solution. Their progress is indicated by a change in the color of the tiles where green signifies a correct guess and yellow indicates that the guess is present in the solution but in a different position.

The twist is that unlike other variations, this one gives players the final answer upfront. The objective of the game is to derive an equation that equals the given final answer using the digits 0-9 and the four operators +, -, * and /. It provides six squares and the solution can contain up to two operators.

The challenge lies in the fact that there are several methods of arriving at an answer. Players are required to follow the order of operations in their equations, otherwise known as the PEMDAS rule - parentheses, exponentials, division, multiplication, addition, followed by subtraction.

If a player fails to follow this rule or if the equation does not equal the given answer, then the game automatically rejects that attempt with a warning pop-up. This saves them from mindlessly wasting an attempt.

Numbers and operations may recur in the solution. Additionally, Mathler allows for commutative solutions, where a+b+c is treated the same as a+c+b, b+a+c, b+c+a, c+a+b, and c+b+a. It states that commutative solutions will be automatically rearranged to the exact solution.

Apart from its standard level of difficulty, there are two other modes - Easy Mathler and Hard Mathler. The former has five squares and only one operator, while the latter has eight squares and can include up to three operators.

The creator Daniel Tait has another game called Wordga, which is built on the basic foundation of Scrabble, but online. Players are given a set of ten letters that they need to use to build the highest-scoring word.

For math enthusiasts looking for an even more challenging game, Mathdle and Nerdle require them to guess the entire equation, including the final answer after the = sign.

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