A daily Howard-themed Wordle game appeared on Fizz, an anonymous college community app. The game is an unofficial, student-created spin on The New York Times’ popular puzzle and has students anticipating each day’s challenge.
The game, first created by software engineer Josh Wardle, was later sold to The New York Times in January 2022. The publishing company recently released a new feature for the game on Nov. 6, allowing players to create their own Wordle puzzles with words up to seven letters.
Samuel Booker, a junior marketing major from Georgetown, Guyana took advantage of this new feature and decided to create an “HU Wordle,” a Howard variation of the New York Times’ wordle game. The game gives players six attempts to guess the word and after each guess, players receive color-coded hints: green for correct letters in the correct spot, yellow for correct letters in the wrong spot and gray for letters not in the word.
“I post on Fizz a lot. With Fizz, nine times out of ten it’s someone being messy or political about something,” Booker said. “I figured I’d post the game and bring some fun back into the app and Howard in general.”
Booker credits his friend, sophomore computer engineering major Thalea Collymore from Queens, New York, who sent Booker the new game feature as soon as it was released, inspiring him to create a Howard edition of the game. The two have been playing Wordle for years and began creating a word bank of Howard-related words to use in the game.
Their shared love for the game enabled them to resurface in the popular Wordle game following the new update.
Since launching the “HU Wordle,” the pair’s posts have received as many as 1.4k upvotes and dozens of supportive comments.
“It’s really anything and everything associated with Howard in the slightest. We try to do current events. For instance, for probate season, we did the word ‘probate,’” Collymore said. “I help [Samuel] with ideas for words throughout the days and sometimes I’m the one that posts the puzzle to Fizz.”
Aisha Tahiru is a junior computer information systems and Spanish double major from Howard County, Maryland. Tahiru played the game since Nov. 10 and looks forward to coming back to Fizz to play, and said it has become her favorite part of the day.
“It brings back the feeling of when Fizz first launched and you could only interact with other Howard students. Back then, it felt more personal…and much more fun.” Tahiru said. “Now that Fizz has opened up to everyone, it doesn’t feel as uniquely ‘ours’ anymore.”
That shift, she said, is part of why the “HU Wordle” stands out.
“The Wordle gives me that old sense of community again. The clues and answers are so specific to life at Howard that it feels like you’re sharing a moment with other students. That’s what brings me back each day; it feels like a small corner of the internet where only Howard students are in on the joke,” Tahiru said.
Collymore said the downside of the anonymity of the app is not knowing who is playing and not being able to see the statistics surrounding the game such as how many people are playing the game, what they scored and who scored the highest. Booker also discusses some downsides regarding The New York Times and the constraints of brainstorming new words, as some are banned from the game.
“The New York Times app doesn’t allow you to use certain words. I wanted to use “Kamala” as one of the words, but it said that the word was banned and that I couldn’t use it,” Booker said.
This new feature of creating one’s own word puzzles is only accessible through the Wordle subscription on The New York Times Games. Because of this, Booker said he’s already thinking beyond the Times’ format.
“I deal with coding a lot, so I have plans to create a website where people can do their own Wordle, and it’s no longer under a subscription,” Booker said. “I want to track everyone’s answers in a database and showcase who got the highest guesses to create a bit of competition and make it a bit more fun.”
Despite starting as a lighthearted experiment, the “HU Wordle” became a daily staple in the Howard Fizz community, and its creators said they’re committed to continuing it.
“We didn’t expect to get as much traction as we did, but because the traction is still there, we’re going to keep on going,” Collymore said.
Copy edited by Damenica Ellis
