Spotify Bought Our Favorite ‘Wordle’ Alternative

The game Wordle took over the internet for a good while earlier this year, and dozens of similar trivia games emerged trying to emulate its success. Today, Spotify announced it acquired Heardle, our favorite Wordle alternative, and instead of guessing a new word each day, you guess a popular song.

For those that didn’t know this awesome music trivia game existed, it’s almost exactly like Wordle. Developed by Omaske, Heardle plays a short snippet of audio daily, and you’ll have to guess the song. Every incorrect guess, or if you don’t know and have to hit skip, will unlock a little more audio. Like Worlde, you only have six guesses before it’s game over.

Heardle initially pulled its music from Soundcloud, so the music was somewhat limited. Now, with Spotify in control, it has an extensive music collection. The company already made a few changes, for better or worse, and you can’t “skip” while listening anymore and have to wait to skip between each guess. Then, in the end, it’ll link to the song on Spotify for you to enjoy the entire song.

It looks like Spotify wants to keep the trivia game going, plus it should serve as an excellent way for music fans to discover new bands and artists. Here’s what Spotify had to say in a press release:

“We are always looking for innovative and playful ways to enhance music discovery and help artists reach new fans. Heardle has proven to be a really fun way to connect millions of fans with songs they know and love and with new songs and a way to compete with their friends as to who has the best musical knowledge.” – Jeremy Erlich, global head of music at Spotify.

For now, almost every aspect of the game remains the same. You can still head to the dedicated Heardle website to play, and it’ll continue to track your winning streak on each device you play on and let you share results on social media.

According to Spotify, the game has millions of active daily players and will remain free to play for everyone. However, we heard something similar when The NYT bought Wordle. Eventually, Spotify wants to integrate Heardle “more fully” into the official Spotify app, so we’ll have to wait and see.

When you go to the games website, you’ll already see Spotify integration for users in the U.S., the UK, Canada, Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand. Then, expect it to expand to more regions and additional languages soon, opening up access to millions of other players.

If you’re a music lover that grew tired of Wordle, give Heardle a listen today.

via The Verge