Bardle is a Wordle spinoff using only words from Shakespeare's works, with Shakespeare reacting as you play. Play it here.
The Words:
- I wrote a Python script that takes the Bard's complete works as input and extracts every 5 letter word into one big list. I found that the Bard wrote 2,948 distinct 5 letter words. These include everything from character names to words from play titles.
- I then removed all the uninteresting words (in my opinion) like “every” and “great” and kept all the more unique, entertaining ones like “swain” and “apish” - not to mention all the words Shakespeare invented, like “batty” and “grime!" These made it to the final game.
- My goal in editing the word list was to ensure that each answer has a Bard "feel," meaning every word is one you might remember reading in Shakespeare or can easily imagine him using.
- All answers are from Shakespeare's works, but valid 5 letter words not found in Shakespeare can be used as guesses.
- Try entering an invalid guess (not 5 letters and/or not a word) to get a Shakespearean reaction. You'll also get a reaction upon winning or losing the game.
- If you’re curious where and how the Bard used a BARDLE word, filter for it in his complete works on Project Gutenberg. Try finding all the different contexts in which he used today's BARDLE.