The word puzzle game Wordle might not be as popular now as it was a mere few months ago, but there are still countless clones and ports showing up. Perhaps one of the most unusual ports is a version for the Commodore 64, which just received an update.
The Commodore 64 was released in 1982 (nearly 40 years ago!) as an 8-bit come computer, packed with 64KB of memory. It eventually became the best-selling single computer model of all time, and like many retro computers and consoles, there are still a few people actively developing new software and games. Spiro Harvey, also known as 'Not a Wizard' on YouTube and other platforms, has been working on a port of the popular game Wordle designed for the Commodore 64.
The game works more or less like the original web-based Wordle game: you have six tries to guess a word, and letters you have guessed correctly will be highlighted as you go. It's playable in Commodore 64 emulators, but if you have a real C64 (or modern recreations like the C64 Mini), you can play it on there too.
Harvey just released version 1.3 of the C64 game, which speeds up loading times, adds a word lookup feature, and fixes a bug that caused crashes after playing two games. The compiled game and all the source code is available on GitHub.
The original Wordle game was developed by software engineer Josh Wardle in October 2021, and it went viral on social media platforms (especially Twitter) around December 2021. The game's popularity led to a surge of clones, and Wordle was sold to the New York Times in January 2022 for an undisclosed sum.
There have been a few other Wordle clones for retro platforms, too. Windle and WinQuest were created for Windows 3.1, based on the look and feel of the built-in Minesweeper games, and there are ports to the Game Boy and Nintendo Entertainment System. Wordle's simple gameplay lends itself well to retro ports, though some versions have a much smaller list of available words than the main game --- available memory is a problem for early computers and consoles.