Wardle, 43, created the puzzle game, originally called “Mr Bugs’ Wordy Nugz” in 2020 to entertain himself and girlfriend Palak Shah during the pandemic. The name later changed to Wordle, a play on his surname.
When asked if he thought he’d create another word puzzle game, he previously said: “Why would I do that to myself?”
Despite this, Wardle and a team of collaborators recently launched Parseword, a wordplay game inspired by Wardle’s attempts to get to grips with cryptic crossword puzzles.
Much like Wordle, the player gets to solve one cryptic crossword clue a day, the game becomes progressively harder as the week goes on.
Wardle said: “I remember looking at clues and feeling utterly flummoxed. Like it was completely impenetrable.
“They’ve become my favourite format, because hidden under all this complexity is this amazingly elegant puzzle.”
Wardle said he wants to help “folks who haven’t been able to break into cryptic crosswords, to teach them the rules”.
“I love language, this tool we all have access to, we use every day,” he said.
“I think I’m just trying to make games that I would want to play.”