When dad and software engineer Christopher Porter sat down to play Wordle with this daughter Astrid, he got an amazing idea. The vocab game that is taking the word by storm may be fun and a challenge for adults, but the daily puzzles aren’t all that kid friendly.
So Porter set out to change that. On his blog, Canadian Veggie, he describes how he and a friend came up with Spellie: a Wordle-like game that is just for kids.
“The first prototypes were in a spreadsheet where we tested out various word lengths. One thing we quickly found was that shorter words were actually harder than longer words because you get less feedback. This was challenging for young spellers as they know more 3 and 4-letter words – so we added hints and help,” his blog reads.
To make Spellie as fun and motivating as possible, Porter uses a kid-friendly words and fonts, three difficulty levels, hints, over 400 emojis to collect as rewards and more.
While Porter wants to make some changes in the future, your kids can already play Spellie for free now.
––Karly Wood
Feature: Tada via Shutterstock
RELATED STORIES
TIME’s Kid of the Year Is an 11-Year-Old ‘Ambassador for Kindness’
Wife of L.A. Rams Player Goes into Labor Mid Super Bowl
Meghan Trainor’s Baby Is Adorably Unimpressed by His First Birthday Cake
