Waffle is an online daily word game along the lines of Wordle. The game is played on a 21-square grid that resembles a waffle, and the aim is to rearrange the letters to make six five-letter English words. A letter is shown in green when it is in the correct position, and it is shown in yellow when it is in the wrong position but in the correct row or column. A move in the game consists of transposing two letters that are in incorrect positions, and the goal is to solve the game in 10 to 15 moves.
being a long time lover of Waffle (on New Year's Eve I broke a streak of 250+ successful games) I'd like to add that in the theoretical case of the starting position with just a single green square it cannot be the top left or bottom right one, for obvious symmetry reasons.
I had no idea it was so popular! Regarding your observation, I agree that if the solved game is not symmetric around the main diagonal, then the unique green square cannot be the top left, bottom right, or middle one. But what happens if the solved game is symmetric? The “MAMMA/AMASS” example in the post has a single green square in the top left and a lot of yellow squares. Is it possible to do something similar but with no yellow squares?
yup, I forgot the letter at the centre of the Waffle board. As for symmetric games, I believe that a non-written rule is that all words are different. I may expect a departure from that rule on April Fools' Day, but not much else.
Having a single green square on a corner and no yellow squares means that we must have 12 unique letters and 9 letters repeated twice among the six words in the solution. It *could* be possible, but I believe a computer search would be needed.
This post makes one appreciate even more the value of mathematics in games. Excellent!
being a long time lover of Waffle (on New Year's Eve I broke a streak of 250+ successful games) I'd like to add that in the theoretical case of the starting position with just a single green square it cannot be the top left or bottom right one, for obvious symmetry reasons.
I had no idea it was so popular! Regarding your observation, I agree that if the solved game is not symmetric around the main diagonal, then the unique green square cannot be the top left, bottom right, or middle one. But what happens if the solved game is symmetric? The “MAMMA/AMASS” example in the post has a single green square in the top left and a lot of yellow squares. Is it possible to do something similar but with no yellow squares?
yup, I forgot the letter at the centre of the Waffle board. As for symmetric games, I believe that a non-written rule is that all words are different. I may expect a departure from that rule on April Fools' Day, but not much else.
Having a single green square on a corner and no yellow squares means that we must have 12 unique letters and 9 letters repeated twice among the six words in the solution. It *could* be possible, but I believe a computer search would be needed.
this was a pretty fun read
I agree that it’s challenging, but it’s still fun if the games are set up not to be too easy or too hard.