How would you build Wordle with just HTML & CSS? | Scott Jehl, Web Designer/Developer

Constraints, working with and around them, can be some of the most fertile ways to uncover new ideas and techniques and just plain magic.

Those of my vintage might remember Space Invaders, one of the breakout (obscure video game history reference intended) games to make video gaming mainstream.
Rows of tiny aliens marched inexorably down toward your ship as you fired up. Shoot them all or they would over run you.

A distinctive feature of the game play was as you eliminate more and more of your foes they sped up! The associated sound added to an increasing sense of anxiety. Such amazing game design.

Except it wasn’t originally the design. The aliens were supposed to continue at the same rate. But the hardware, and game designer and developer Tomohiro Nishikado discovered that as the aliens were eliminated and the hardware had to draw fewer and fewer of them it could do so more quickly so the game sped up.

He toyed with the idea of slowing it back down but realised it made the game far more exciting.

He worked with the constraints and limitations of the system. And created a genre defining classic.

Scott Jehl has done something very different but still reminiscent here, asking how you might develop game like Wordle using no JavaScript, just HTML and CSS. Let’s find out what happens next…