Squaredle

The Making of a Squaredle

June 29, 2022

Ever wonder how a Squaredle puzzle is born?

Let me walk you through the creation of the 500th Subscriber Special, published in celebration of our 500th Squaredle Squared member!

Want more insight into puzzle creation? Want to talk directly with the Squaredle Squad? Join our Discord and subreddit!

Crafting the Puzzle

Let's spell out a special thank-you message with this grid. A 5x5 grid gives us 25 characters to work with, so a first attempt is:

THANK YOU FOR ALL THE SQUARES

Add an exclamation mark at the end to get to 25 characters — a bit unusual, but it'll just fade out to show that it's not used as a "letter."

I love the 8-letter word in this puzzle that starts with "TH". It's quite appropriate.

But we quickly spot two issues:

  1. No words use the "QU" in the corner.
  2. There's a mildly disparaging word in there (finding which is left as an exercise to the reader).

After tinkering with it a bit, we find a variation that lets us celebrate another amazing aspect of the Squaredle community:

THANK YOU FOR ALL THE FEEDBACK

Categorizing the Words

Now we need to plug this grid into our solver, which cross-references the Squaredle word list.

It starts with a basic word frequency list to tentatively split words into Required and Bonus lists. (The cut-off point for word frequency is an arbitrary choice, so we still need to examine each word individually and decide whether it's common or obscure.)

The Squaredle Squad is pretty well-read. But our own experiences are subjective. We check several dictionaries, plus Wiktionary, Wikipedia, Google Search results, and more, to estimate how obscure a word is. Our friends, families, and Discord members are also handy resources for informal polls.

We also release some puzzles to beta players for early testing. That helps us see what words people may struggle with and what words are more common than we thought.

Lately we've been moving hard-to-categorize words into the bonus word category — it's more frustrating to have to brute-force a word you don't know, than it is to enter a word and have it not contribute to your main score.

Here are some words in this puzzle that the word frequency list suggests should be required, but that we'll give some subjective consideration. (SPOILER ALERT: a few of these words remain as required words.)

  • keeler
    I've never heard this word. The definitions are mostly marked as "dialectical." It may be more common in England, but for a word game based on American English, it's a bonus word.
  • teflon
    The genericized form of "Teflon." I think most people have heard of Teflon, but it usually refers to the trademarked, capital-T brand name.
  • aloha
    "Hello/goodbye" in Hawaiian. It's made its way into English, but it still feels like a non-English word. The clincher for me is that "hola" (Spanish for "hello") is not in the official Squaredle word lists, so it would be weird to require "hello" words from other languages.
  • celeb
    A shortening of "celebrity." Shortenings are hard to categorize, but I think this is informal enough to qualify as a bonus word. It's not like the word "demo", which is used in some contexts much more frequently than the full word "demonstration."
  • fauna
    The animal life of a region. I'll admit it's a tad obscure, but I think enough people are familiar with the terms "flora and fauna" that we'd like to keep it as a required word. Yes, we expect to get some negative feedback from this decision, but I suspect we'd get more feedback if we made it a bonus word!
  • fella
    Very informal. Bonus word.
  • flora
    Hah, both "flora" and "fauna" in the same puzzle? Definitely keeping both of these as required words, because that's just hilarious!
  • hoary
    This word is a bit archaic or poetic. Folks might know "hoarfrost", but "hoary" isn't a word we see very often.
  • knoll
    If not for the infamous "grassy knoll", this might've been a bonus word.
  • lohan
    An example of the word frequency list breaking down. Lindsay Lohan is a famous actress, but the lowercase-L "lohan", in East Asia, refers to any of the historical enlightened Buddhists. Definitely a bonus word.
  • torah
    Some people will be irked by this, but: "Torah" is normally capitalized. The lowercase "torah" refers to the general body of Jewish religious literature and is a more obscure usage.
  • alfa
    The proper noun "Alfa" refers to "A" in the radio alphabet. The lowercase "alfa" actually means a West African Islamic cleric — certainly a bonus word in American English.
  • faro
    A gambling game I've never heard of. According to Wikipedia, it hasn't been popular in the US since the early 1900s, so we'll make it a bonus word.
  • hale
    A tricky word to categorize. It's a perfectly valid word, meaning "healthy", but I suspect a lot of people don't know this one and we only really see it in poetry, older literature, and crossword puzzles. So let's make it a bonus word.
  • kell
    I'm not familiar with any of the definitions of this word. Merriam-Webster doesn't define it at all (except as a proper adjective). Bonus.
  • noll
    Apparently a dialectical word in the UK for the [top of the] head. Not at all common in America.
  • rhea
    A South American bird I doubt many people have heard of.
  • roan
    A coloration, especially common in describing horses. Another word that's tricky to categorize. In the past, we've marked it as required, but we're trying to make these puzzles more accessible. We'll probably take some flak for this, but: bonus word.
  • yale
    My alma mater and a common crossword puzzle word! But lowercase-Y "yale" (a mythical beast) definitely belongs as a bonus word.

    • Phew. After categorizing these words, we turn to the 225 words marked as "bonus." Most of these are words I've never heard of, and about half aren't even defined in Merriam-Webster — but they're still valid English words according to our source word lists.

    14 of these words are common words that really should be required, so we move them to the "required" list.

    The most controversial bonus word will probably be "halfback." If you follow American football or rugby you'll know this word, but it's not in the common lexicon the way "quarterback" is. Since its usage is really limited to a specific field (sports) — even if the field is fairly commonly known — we'll make it a bonus word to avoid penalizing folks who have little interest in sports.

    Then there are bonus words that you probably understand as soon as you read them — "refeel, holed" — but wouldn't normally think of on your own. English is great at making new words from prefixes and suffixes. But these technically valid words don't really come up often.

    So now we've categorized 109 required words and 209 bonus words. There are usually twice as many bonus words as required words, so this looks about right! Next, we need to rate the difficulty — it's easily a 5, with this many words and with some of the words being more complex. Lastly, let's add a special message and select the Bonus Word of the Day.

    The Bonus Word of the Day has been a fun part of Squaredle since its inception in late February. It's just a way to share our love of words with our players. And sometimes we can point out a word that folks might think should be required, and explain why it's a bonus word. (Example for an upcoming puzzle: "brie." Did you know Brie, the cheese, is a proper noun, and therefore not a Squaredle word? But the lowercase-B "brie" refers to "broth" in Scottish English. That's definitely obscure!)

    This Bonus Word of the Day is a fun one, and perhaps the longest one we've had so far. I hope you like it! (Hint: It's made up of the 8-letter word that starts with "TH", plus a three-letter suffix.)

    Time to save the puzzle and let our Beta players in the Discord know it's ready. Once we incorporate their feedback, we're releasing it publicly.

    Happy Squaredleing!

    Play This Puzzle (500th Subscriber Special)

    Play Today's Squaredle

    Support Squaredle