Wordle #399 answer for Saturday, July 23

Wordle is back with a new word for players to find. The puzzle began as a personal project but grew big enough to become a viral sensation.

It was introduced to internet users last year, and within a few weeks, it started roping in millions of visitors. Many of these people have made the game a permanent part of their lives and continue to solve it to date.

They make sure to take some time out of their daily routine to dedicate themselves to solving the mini puzzle. However, some days the game tends to be too difficult to solve, which pushes people to take help from the internet. This article contains useful clues for such players.

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The solution for Wordle #399 rhymes with "fridge"

1) The word begins with the letter M

2) The word contains the letter D

3) The word contains two vowels in it

4) The word ends with the letter E

Saturday's answer is a fairly uncommon word that rhymes with "fridge." The solution for July 23 is the word "midge."

According to Merriam Webster, a is "a tiny dipteran fly that forms swarms and breeds near water or marshy areas."

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The rise of Wordle as a social phenomenon

Josh Wardle created the game for his wife Palak Shah. Shah is a quiz lover, and this love of hers inspired the Brooklyn-based software engineer to come up with a unique puzzle of his own. The couple worked together to create a prototype for the game in 2013 and asked their friends to review it.

Unfortunately, the game failed to impress their mates who complained that it was filled with absurd and archaic words. Additionally, because they could play it as many times as they wanted, the players were often bored.

Looking at all the negative feedback it received, the couple ended up dropping the game. Wordle was forgotten for almost 10 years, while Wardle focused on other projects like Button and Place while working for Reddit.

The abandoned project made a re-entry into the couple's lives when they, along with the rest of the world, were stuck at home during the COVID-19 pandemic. During the pandemic lockdown, the couple spent their free time playing games like Crossword, which reminded them of Wordle.

They decided to give the game a second life and worked on it to make it more enjoyable. Shah filtered the word list and removed unrecognizable words, while Wardle added a one-game per day limit.

The modified version was a hit. Over time, it started to attract new players and made itself a growing community. Looking at the growing numbers, Wardle decided to release the game to the public in October 2021, after which it was acquired by the New York Times in January 2022.

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The Sudoku version of Wordle

Wordle has given birth to a plethora of games inspired by it, but nothing really comes close to Crosswordle. This spinoff provides a unique take on the viral quiz.

Most Wordle spinoffs require players to find a preset answer. However, this spinoff gives the day's answer at the beginning of the game.

Players are required to recreate the gameplay that would result in the answer. The game is a little complicated to understand and takes time to get accustomed to.

The grid comes with clues in the form of empty colored boxes. Players have to keep in mind that green boxes must be filled with the exact letter in the answer at the precise spot. Yellow boxes should have letters present in the solution but in a different place, and gray boxes should be filled with letters that don't appear in the word at all.

The goal is to fill up the grid with the correct answers as fast as one can.

Wrong entries are marked with a small red flag, and the game does not accept words with those indications.

The spinoff comes with both daily and unlimited options to play. The unlimited option has three different difficulty modes: easy, moderate, and hard.