Why I collect DLES

5/29/2026 at 10:08:22 PM

I'll be honest, I never quite understood the fascination with daily games that Wordle seems to have sparked. I'll grant that it's probably better than being stuck in algorithmic feeds, but the retention strategies, such as streaks, are just as manipulative.

I wanna play a game when and how often I like and not be forced into a daily pattern and be made to feel awful if I miss it just once.

by Timwi

5/29/2026 at 11:52:22 PM

I put a word game together, it was a fun exercise. Nobody plays it except my wife and her family. It's really not even finished or even that good. Since it's one of the few things she likes that I made, it's still up with a user base of 3.

by batch12

5/30/2026 at 5:23:38 AM

I'd love to give it a try!

by trizoza

5/30/2026 at 2:18:14 PM

Here you go-

The point of the game is to find as many words as possible with the least number of swaps and leftover letters. There's always a solution that takes no swaps and uses all letters.

https://wordgame.o565.com/

by batch12

5/30/2026 at 9:14:05 PM

That's actually amazing. I'm gonna add it to my collection.

by trizoza

5/30/2026 at 11:25:18 PM

Well thanks for the kind words

by batch12

5/30/2026 at 5:22:56 AM

Yes, there's a huge debate among the DLE makers whether to add streaks and leaderboards at all. These can be stressful and actually cause players to drop. The original Wordle had none of that and that's why it was so successful.

On the other hand, not every game gets acquired by NYT and something has to pay for the bills, Wordle used to have an AWS bill 900 USD a day before the acquisition.

by trizoza

5/30/2026 at 12:11:41 AM

Depends on the game, I stopped wordle because it didn't give me any validation when I solved it anymore, but some games are genuinely fun, and the "daily" element is only because they're replayable puzzles, like sudoku or crosswords, try https://cluesbysam.com/ for example, it's my favourite, difficulty scales by day so Monday is easiest

by king_zee

5/30/2026 at 1:14:11 AM

I have a bunch of games or puzzles I do (mostly) daily but never cared about the streaks or any of that. Pure enjoyment.

To answer your question: most ppl enjoy routine and the satisfaction of checking a box, no matter what that box is.

by wunderlotus

5/30/2026 at 10:17:47 AM

Just give me a box that I can check

by trizoza

5/29/2026 at 8:44:30 PM

Nice. The build your ritual is quite a cute feature.

by andersmurphy

5/29/2026 at 8:45:56 PM

TY! You'd be surprised how many people forget to play their DLES cause they just play too many. This solves that.

by trizoza

5/29/2026 at 10:54:32 PM

I like the collection, but I'd love it if someone would make a high-quality open source clone of them. They're so simple, I really don't care if it's AI slop under the hood as long I don't have to endure the pointless tracking and ads most of them employ.

A clone rater would be a great service to this genre, since many of the clones out there are somehow, just, really bad - maybe because the barrier to entry is so low?

by anticorporate

5/29/2026 at 9:17:29 PM

This collection is missing my personal fave: https://javdle.com (very NSFW)

by thunderfork

5/30/2026 at 1:12:57 PM

this is my girlfriend's new favorite, thank you

by thedrexster

5/30/2026 at 3:46:52 AM

I don't understand this

by nerdile

5/30/2026 at 5:35:26 PM

AFAIU you're presented with the titles of two porn videos and have to guess the one with the most likes

by klez

5/30/2026 at 5:23:21 AM

Uff

by trizoza