Entertainment

Survivle is reverse Wordle where you avoid the correct answer

March 7, 2022

100

It’s surprisingly much harder to be wrong (pic: Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto/REX/Shutterstock)

Inspired by both Wordle and Absurdle, Survivle is another challenging alternative where the aim is to keep guessing the wrong answer.

Wordle’s explosive popularity has spawned a number of copycats and unofficial spin-offs, but whether it’s limited to Disney words or making you solve eight at once, the end goal is always the same: to figure out the correct answer.

Survivle, one of the newest alternatives, turns the very goal of Wordle on its head and, instead of figuring out the hidden word within a limited number of guesses, it challenges you to avoid the correct answer for as long as you can.

On paper, that sounds ridiculously easy but, clearly knowing this, creator lazyguyy on Reddit has incorporated some additional, much stricter rules. Just like Wordle’s hard mode, you must use any letters you’ve correctly guessed on subsequent guesses.

To make it extra difficult, you’re also not allowed to use incorrect letters. For example, say your first guess is HOUSE and the E is the only correct letter. Not only must your second guess include an E, but you also can’t use H, O, U, or S anymore.

You can try out Survivle for yourself via this link and, while it starts off with a daily puzzle that is the same for everyone, there is a button that will generate a random word in case you get hooked and don’t want to wait a day.

Like most Wordle imitators, it’s completely free, although it lacks a stat tracker or share feature. Judging by some of the comments, those who’ve tried it enjoy it. It’s drawn comparisons to Absurdle, another challenging variant, which lazyguyy admits was a key inspiration, besides Wordle itself.

One Redditor jokingly suggests that, should Survivle take off in a big way, it should not be sold to a newspaper, obviously referencing how Wordle was bought by The New York Times.

Ever since then, it seems Wordle discourse has become more commonplace, with complaints of it being much harder now and being secretly filled with ad tracking software.