For those who find Wordle's solutions difficult enough today, Quordle is a nightmare: you can try nine times to Wordle's six, but you have to find four words at the same time.

However, the game has a fan base that outlasts most of Wordle's replacement, Flash in the Pan, which has made creator Freddie Meyer a lot of money. The game was acquired privately by Merriam-Webster, a dictionary and reference book maker.

Tapping www.quordle.com (open in new tab) in the browser redirects the user to a page on the Merriam-Webster site. Other than that (and aside from a privacy options pop-up for first-time users), it is no different than usual, with only the Merriam-Webster logo next to the familiar Quordle logo. As usual, you can enter today's Quordle answers and build up your stats.

However, the game doesn't stop all the time. Tapping into the game's help section reveals a brief message from Meyer, who is pleased with the Merriam-Webster acquisition and promises that "new features and fun are coming." [Merriam-Webster is owned by Encylopedia Britannica, and while there is always a concern that things will be radically different when a large company buys a smaller one, Quordle's avid users have little to worry about, at least in the short term

"Our sisters are the ones who have the most to gain from this.

In an interview with our sister site, TechRadar (opens in new tab), Merriam-Webster president Gregory Barlow assured fans that there are no plans to make the game pay.

"We have no plans to make any changes." We may have some new features and some new game types coming, but the core game that people play every day, I don't think that will change."

While not quite the cultural phenomenon that Wordle, promoted by everyone from Jimmy Fallon (open in new tab) to the Vice President of the United States (open in new tab), is, Quordle will bring a lot of traffic to Merriam-Webster's gaming section. According to Barlow, 29.7 million players have attempted 410 million puzzles in the past six months, which may mimic the "tens of millions of new users (open in new tab)" that the New York Times' gaming section gained with its Wordle acquisition.

Wordle and Quordle are not the only online guessing games acquired by big online brands last year. Last July, music identification game Heardle was acquired by streaming giant Spotify for an undisclosed amount (opens in new tab).

I hope Waffle, my personal favorite of Wordle-Like, doesn't feel left out.