From the archive
Wurdle
Wurdle came out for the iPhone in 2008, the App Store's first year, and Wired put it third in its top ten iPhone games. Daring Fireball linked it in August 2008, and that link still points here.
Semi Secret is an independent publication, not the studio that made these games; this page is an unofficial account written from the public record.
How it played
You found words in a square grid of letter tiles by tracing a finger from letter to letter, as in Boggle, and scored them before the timer ran out. Shaking the board mixed up the tiles when you were stuck. At the end of a round you could see every possible word on the board.
The options that set it apart
- Grids from 4 by 4 up to 8 by 8.
- A timer you could set, an untimed mode and a minimum word length.
- Two word lists, TWL and SOWPODS, the North American and international Scrabble dictionaries.
- Pass-and-play multiplayer on one phone.
- Your own photos behind the board.
- Online high scores, and a Facebook app to compare them with friends.
What reviewers said
The game's own page collected its press: third in Wired's top ten iPhone games, a place in TouchArcade's best of 2008, Molly Wood of CNET calling herself obsessed, and Daring Fireball calling it an addictive, fast-paced word game with terrific use of the touch screen.
Who made it
Wurdle was Semi Secret Software's first iOS hit, made by Eric Johnson and Adam Saltsman in Austin. In July 2013 the studio's blog said an Android version was coming very soon from the partner that had brought Canabalt to Android.