Absurdle

Wordle's evil twin. Absurdle never picks a word before you start playing. It holds every possible answer open at once, and each time you guess it picks whichever reply keeps the most candidates alive. The word only becomes real when you have squeezed it down to one.

1. Type any five-letter word and submit it.
2. Read the tiles, then guess again. There is no limit on tries.
3. Keep narrowing until you play the answer itself.

This is where you go when Wordle has stopped making you think. Absurdle never commits to a word: it answers each guess in whichever way keeps its options widest, so you are not searching, you are cornering something that is actively running. Its author says the best possible score is four guesses, which tells you how tight the good lines are. It is free and needs no account. What it will not give you is a daily ritual, because there is no puzzle of the day and no streak.

The same three colours as Wordle, except they are chosen to reveal as little as possible rather than read off a fixed answer. You can also switch the tiles to symbols instead of colour.

Hard

Every clue you uncover has to be used in later guesses.

Challenge

A challenge variant you switch on in the settings panel.

Timed

A timed variant you switch on in the settings panel.

Big vocabulary

Switches the game to a larger word list.

• Think about your worst case, not your best. The right opener is the one whose largest surviving group is smallest, since that group is exactly what you will be given.