Wordle but for NBA fans!
February 28, 2022 5:35 PM   Subscribe

Basketle If you love Wordle but you also are a basketball freak then I introduce you Basketle! 5 letters, 6 guesses (just like Wordle) and a wide variety of NBA players, teams or coaches acceptable as answers (current and past).

My score for today's Basketle:

Basketle 58 4/6

⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
⬜🟩⬜⬜⬜
🟨⬜⬜🟩🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
posted by andrewmc (15 comments total) 3 users marked this as a favorite
 
If hockey is more your jam, there's always Gordle (almost named Hertl, which works better in audio than text).
posted by Superilla at 5:42 PM on February 28, 2022


The most recent (until just now, of course) variation was one that gives you geographical silhouettes and asks you to locate them: Worldle. It is surprisingly difficult to say without sounding drunk or to plug into your search engine of choice.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 5:50 PM on February 28, 2022 [1 favorite]


Basketle 58 3/6

⬜🟩⬜⬜⬜
⬜🟩⬜⬜⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

on one hand this is incredibly silly, but on the other it was really satisfying to see everything come up green.
posted by ethand at 6:22 PM on February 28, 2022 [1 favorite]


⬜️🟩⬜️⬜️⬜️
⬜️🟩🟩⬜️⬜️
⬜️🟩🟩⬜️🟩
⬜️🟩🟩⬜️🟩
⬜️🟩🟩🟩🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Not really a basketball guy but I felt silly it took 6 tries after I figured it out.
posted by Big Al 8000 at 6:35 PM on February 28, 2022


I've been playing Poeltl this week, which has a slightly different mechanism. You have to know a bit more about players and teams.
posted by oneirodynia at 6:40 PM on February 28, 2022 [2 favorites]


Also I just tried the last name of a Golden State player in basketle and it said "word not found" so I am already frustrated.
posted by oneirodynia at 6:43 PM on February 28, 2022


Should be up my alley but if it doesn't accept DERON or CLYDE then I'm not seeing a meaningful overlap with my NBA fandom and the wordle schtick.

I'd try Poeltl instead but I think Ja Morant just permanently shut down that game.
posted by Theophrastus Johnson at 7:08 PM on February 28, 2022 [7 favorites]


I'd try Poeltl instead but I think Ja Morant just permanently shut down that game.

BAH GAWD KING, THAT MAN HAD A FAMILY
posted by azpenguin at 7:56 PM on February 28, 2022 [2 favorites]


There’s a cycling version, called Bikle.
posted by computech_apolloniajames at 8:38 PM on February 28, 2022


Basketle 58 4/6

⬜🟩⬜⬜⬜
⬜🟩⬜⬜⬜
⬜🟩🟩⬜🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
posted by emd3737 at 8:52 PM on February 28, 2022


Basketle 58 3/6

⬛🟨⬛⬛⬛
⬛⬛⬛🟨🟨
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Yay me 🙂
posted by rouftop at 10:18 PM on February 28, 2022


The most recent (until just now, of course) variation was one that gives you geographical silhouettes and asks you to locate them: Worldle

#Worldle #39 4/6 (100%)
🟩🟩🟩🟩⬜↘️
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟨↘️
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟨⬅️
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🎉

That was surprisingly interesting (I'm terrible at geography). Thanks for the recommendation
posted by trig at 7:48 AM on March 1, 2022


Poeltl is really cool.

It feels more like playing Carmen Sandiego than wordle. Mobile is a little annoying because it gives you a list of things, but always picks the top element, so you need to basically type in the whole name. I like the clues, though having the team name be yellow is a little confusing (what's up to 2 teams away in a division?).

Also shows how bad google has gotten with its ML "guesses". Looking up "southwest nba division" gives me a table that says "southwest division" and then lists "heat, bulls, 76ers...", so ... wrong conference, no divisions, its a list of the eastern standings, which is almost the opposite of what I asked for.

BBRef and ESPN's current roster list are helpful. I can winnow it down at some point, even if I don't know the exact height of players. Yesterday I started with lebron and whittled it down to a young guard in the east pretty quickly. Learned that I really don't know as many players off the top of my head as I used to, but when I got to it, it was someone I saw at summer league and everything clicked.

ETA: Players on the ends of things aren't great starting guesses. Ex: CP3 is relatively old (36), short (6'0), low jersey number (3). The vast majority of players are going to be in the opposite direction, but if you actually get something going the other way, it narrows things down considerably.
posted by lkc at 9:55 AM on March 1, 2022 [2 favorites]


The most recent (until just now, of course) variation was one that gives you geographical silhouettes and asks you to locate them: Worldle
#Worldle #39 4/6 (100%)


During the Wordle takeover by the NYT, they reset my stats so I decided it was time to bail. I quickly landed on Worldle, because I'm a huge geography nerd. However I soon found that it was too easy for me -- OK, Zambia was hard. But once I enabled the random-rotation setting it was more my speed. And now I know that even though those Central American countries look small on the map, they are still 500 miles apart ...
posted by intermod at 6:45 PM on March 1, 2022


What ever Wordle variant you use, the new hotness is using the answer word from the last one as your first guess of the current one. And by "new hotness" I mean just what I've started doing and it's fun.
posted by inflatablekiwi at 8:42 AM on March 2, 2022


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