wordle-clone

A clone of Wordle written in Java. Mainly written so I can test Makefile.

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Project maintained by Akhil841 Hosted on GitHub Pages — Theme by mattgraham

wordle-clone

Introduction

The game Wordle has recently become popular, so I’ve tried my hand at making a clone of it. I also wrote it because I think Makefiles are cool.

Rules

This game plays the same as regular Wordle. You’re trying to guess a word, and you have a limited chances. Enter your guess, and the system will print out your guess. For each letter in the word, if it is the correct letter in the correct position, it will by highlighted green. If it is a correct letter in an incorrect position, it will be highlighted yellow. If the letter is not in the word, it will not be highlighted.

What makes this different from regular Wordle, however, is that you get to pick how long the word is. The number of chances you get is modified accordingly. You can select any word length from 2 to 12.

Platforms

This Wordle clone works for Windows, Mac and Linux. I cannot guarantee (and in fact, I highly doubt) that it will work on mobile devices.

Dependencies

All dependencies are required unless stated otherwise.

• git (optional)
  
• make (if using Mac or Linux)
  
• The .NET Framework, if using Windows
  
• An installation of the JRE, if using Mac or Linux

Installation

1. Clone this repository by entering
   
   git clone https://github.com/Akhil841/wordle-clone
   
   into the command line (requires git) or by downloading this repository as a ZIP file (click on the green Code button next to the “About” header) and unzipping it.
2. Compile and execute the program by cd-ing into the directory where this repository is located on your computer and entering
   
   make exec
   
   if on Mac or Linux.
   If you’re on Windows, you’ll have to enter
   
   Wordle
   
   and the program should run. Unfortunately Windows and Java console applications don’t go well together, so what you’re running is actually a C# port of the game. It functions identically, though, so you don’t need to worry.
3. The program should run, and you should be able to play Wordle in the command line!

Other notes

• If you want to compile the game on Windows, open .\Wordle\Wordle.sln in Visual Studio and compile it.
• It’s better to run this program on Mac or Linux because make compiles the game if the source is updated, but on Windows, you’re running a compiled, release version of the game (that will not update unless you reinstall the repository). The difference is barely noticeable, so don’t worry too much about it.
  • If you want make functionality in Windows, you can install Chocolatey and run
    choco install make.
• You can actually change which words are used by the program! Just edit dictionary.txt and replace it with all the words you want. Each word should be separated by a newline.
  • Fun fact: The default dictionary is actually a merge of the University of Michigan’s list of all English words and the list of all legal Scrabble words!
• If you don’t like how many lives you get, you can open Wordle.java (or Wordle.cs on Windows) and edit the variable LIFE_MULTIPLIER (default 1.5) or, if you want, you can edit MAX_LIVES to force the number of lives to be a specific number, regardless of the word length you pick.
• If you want the class files or just the JAR for whatever reason, the Makefile has recipes for WordleTools.class, Wordle.class, and Wordle.jar. If you’re on Windows, just open the Makefile with a text editor and you’ll see the commands used to make each of these files.