The History of Wordels

It Began as a Family Game

Wordels began long before it was a computer game. My mother and her brother created it as a pen-and-paper word game and played it together for years. When I was in my early teens, my mother taught the game to me, and it became part of our family tradition as well. We continued playing for many years.

The rules were simple to learn but created a surprisingly deep game of deduction: each player chose a secret five-letter word, then tried to discover the opponent's word by making guesses and learning only how many letters matched. A player was not told which letters matched or where they belonged. The strategy came from changing letters carefully and reasoning from the changing totals.

The Original PC Game

In 1999, I transformed our family game into a PC game and copyrighted my work under the name Wordels. It was my way of preserving the game we had enjoyed together while giving other people a chance to play it.

I later submitted Wordels to the CNET download repository as shareware. The surviving CNET listing for Wordels records a submission date of December 7, 2001. I even sold a couple of copies through that early release.

The original PC version of Wordels still exists and can still be run, although its functionality is now limited on modern computers. It remains a glimpse of where the computerized version of the game began.

I also submitted Wordels to a couple of game manufacturers in the hope of finding a larger audience for it. The personal-computer game market was still young, and the publishing and distribution opportunities available to independent developers were nothing like they are today. Steam had not yet launched, and established game companies such as Blizzard were not practical avenues for a small, independently created word game.

The people who reviewed Wordels enjoyed playing it, but the companies were not interested in purchasing or publishing the game. Without an accessible marketplace through which an independent creator could distribute it widely, Wordels essentially sat on the shelf. The game remained part of my family's history, waiting for an opportunity to return.

An Unexpected Turn

Years later, I was shocked to learn that a much simpler word game with a strikingly similar name was being sold to The New York Times. Because I held the copyright to my original PC game, I struggled to understand how that could happen.

I contacted the patent law firm that had handled my original copyright registration. After accepting my retainer, the firm sent a letter to The New York Times explaining that it was considering the purchase of a game idea for which I already held a copyright. The letter did not seek to prevent the purchase. It explained that if the Times wished to buy the newer game, that was its decision, but argued that the creator of the original copyrighted game should also receive compensation. As I recall it, the response from the Times was a blunt “no,” together with a warning that if we attempted to pursue the matter, it would file suit against me. I could never afford a legal battle against an organization with the resources of The New York Times, so there was no practical way for me to continue. That ended the matter.

At the time, I came to understand that old software which had gone unchanged and unmonitored for several years could be regarded as abandoned. Whatever the legal distinctions may be, seeing another game with a similar name achieve enormous recognition was deeply frustrating—especially knowing how long Wordels had already existed and how personal its history was to my family.

Wordels Returns

Now I am bringing Wordels back as an interactive browser game. This version returns to the deduction and letter-by-letter strategy at the heart of the original, while allowing the player to compete directly against the computer.

For me, this is more than a remake of an old program. It is a continuation of the game my mother and uncle invented, the game my mother passed on to me, and the PC game I first created in 1999.