Homebrew Homebrew game [Release] Wordle DS - A clone of Wordle for the DS(i)

[Pk11]

Wordle DS​

A clone of Wordle for the Nintendo DS/DSi​

My first homebrew game lol, it's rather simple but I tried to make it look nice including most animations and such. My family's been playing it recently and the JavaScript is too modern for all my handheld devices it's almost like the iPhone 4S is a decade old so I had to use my laptop, but I figured I could make this on DS... so I did.

It should be more or less feature complete with the original. The daily word matches, it tracks your stats, has high contrast colors/hard mode options, etc. You can even get the shareable emoji grid via either QR code or TXT file so you can send that to your friends if you want.

It also has custom background music by @RocketRobz and support for custom mods that allow customizing more or less the entire game to your liking, whether that be simply swapping out the music or a complete overhaul of the game.

As usual, the download is on Universal-DB or GitHub. The source code is also on GitHub.
For TWiLight Menu++ users, there is also a custom boxart image by @SombrAbsol

Wordle DS 241 3/6

 

[DanTheManMS]

This is awesome! I mostly lost interest in the game after it was purchased by the New York Times. This might be enough to get me back into it.

The game plays fine, and the text file it creates has the shareable block emojis that copy-and-paste perfectly into social media.

My issue though is that if I press Start, the whole thing crashes. Not just crashes, but turns the entire DS off. That's not normal, and I've only ever seen a few homebrew programs do that upon severe errors. Every other button does nothing. Looking through the source, it appears that the Start button manually saves the configuration to the JSON file, so somehow that's the part that's causing me issues. What's weird is that it doesn't crash when the configuration is saved any other time, like after a guessed word or after the day's game has been ether won or lost. Not sure what makes this filesystem call different.

My setup is old: DS Phat with a Supercard DS Onei. I'm willing to admit it might be my setup at fault here, if no one else is reporting this same issue.

As for suggestions, I only have one: make the Enter button more prominent somehow. Perhaps use some of the empty space above the keyboard for two big buttons for Enter and Delete? Just a thought.

 

[Pk11]

This is awesome! I mostly lost interest in the game after it was purchased by the New York Times. This might be enough to get me back into it.

The game plays fine, and the text file it creates has the shareable block emojis that copy-and-paste perfectly into social media.

My issue though is that if I press Start, the whole thing crashes. Not just crashes, but turns the entire DS off. That's not normal, and I've only ever seen a few homebrew programs do that upon severe errors. Every other button does nothing. Looking through the source, it appears that the Start button manually saves the configuration to the JSON file, so somehow that's the part that's causing me issues. What's weird is that it doesn't crash when the configuration is saved any other time, like after a guessed word or after the day's game has been ether won or lost. Not sure what makes this filesystem call different.

My setup is old: DS Phat with a Supercard DS Onei. I'm willing to admit it might be my setup at fault here, if no one else is reporting this same issue.

That's intentional, I suppose it's more common with 3DS homebrew but I've seen several other DS homebrew have START as a key to exit the app. If you were using TWiLight Menu++ or HBMenu it'd return to there, however nothing else supports that so it just turns off. fyi the cause of it is returning from the "main" function, that causes it to exit to the loader if possible or otherwise shut down.

I could change it I suppose, START doing the same thing as Enter would make sense too, I just figured I'd make it an exit button as that's somewhat common and if you're using TWiLight/HBMenu it can be nice to have an exit button.

Edit: Hmm, looks like START to exit in DS homebrew is a lot less common than I was remembering, almost all the libnds examples do it but only a couple other actual homebrew (most by me lol) do, it's very common in 3DS homebrew and in the examples though so I think I'll probably still leave it.

As for suggestions, I only have one: make the Enter button more prominent somehow. Perhaps use some of the empty space above the keyboard for two big buttons for Enter and Delete? Just a thought.

Hmm, I just copied the keyboard layout from the original, but might be nice to make those a bit more clear I suppose... I'll try it out in a bit.

 

[DanTheManMS]

Ahh gotcha, so it's the return from main that causes it; makes sense. Yeah the DS Phat/Lite models don't have any sort of main menu like that so the system just shuts off instantly.

It would be nice to disable it at least specifically for the DS version, as it's easy to accidentally hit Start by mistake. Or maybe hide it in the Settings section? I dunno, just throwing some ideas at the wall.

Now that I know the Start button thing is intentional and not a bug, all my major fears are alleviated. Great job again, sharing it with my friend group.

 

[DanTheManMS]

I normally wouldn't double-post since that's typically frowned upon in this forum. However, I feel it's been long enough that it's worth what I have to say.

I've been talking with some of the friends I shared this game with, and they agreed that the behavior of the Start button is unusual for regular DS/DS Lite homebrew. One friend reported that when using "unlaunch" with the DSi file, hitting Start seemed to "crash" the DS, though he was going to try next with TWiLight Menu on a DS:Two.

Honestly the only DS homebrew I previously knew of, that allowed you to shut off the DS from within the software program itself, was with DSLinux and you had to explicitly type the "poweroff" command first. Otherwise, we've got a perfectly good Power button we can use if we want to shut off the system. There's no sense in dedicating one of the 12 buttons on the console for the sole purpose of powering it off.

The libnds examples must have changed since I last programmed for the DS. At that time, it was pretty much cardinal rule number 1 to NEVER EVER return from Main() or else the system will shut off, and that was a very bad thing.

All I'm saying is, you can keep the return-to-menu function for the 3DS; I understand it's very common there. But please disable it for the *.nds version because I'm not the only person who finds it frustrating. Simply commenting out the "return 0" is all it would take for a quick fix without having to bother changing the entire behavior project-wide.

Thanks for listening, and keep up the great work!

 

[Technicmaster0]

I've been talking with some of the friends I shared this game with, and they agreed that the behavior of the Start button is unusual for regular DS/DS Lite homebrew.

My brick breaker (breakout clone) does it, too. You would get back to the hbmenu if you launched the hbmenu from the dsone eos and then the homebrew from the hbmenu. I'm also not sure but the latest wood version might support returning to menu with that.
Maybe start could open a menu that has the option to exit the application. But the button serves a reason: it allows the user to return to the menu of the launcher if the launcher supports it.

 

[DanTheManMS]

Maybe start could open a menu that has the option to exit the application. But the button serves a reason: it allows the user to return to the menu of the launcher if the launcher supports it.

That seems like a very acceptable compromise to me. As long as it takes two actions by the user instead of just one, I'll be more than satisfied. Whether that be two button presses or two touchscreen taps or both/either-or.

 

[Pk11]

I normally wouldn't double-post since that's typically frowned upon in this forum. However, I feel it's been long enough that it's worth what I have to say.

I've been talking with some of the friends I shared this game with, and they agreed that the behavior of the Start button is unusual for regular DS/DS Lite homebrew. One friend reported that when using "unlaunch" with the DSi file, hitting Start seemed to "crash" the DS, though he was going to try next with TWiLight Menu on a DS:Two.

Honestly the only DS homebrew I previously knew of, that allowed you to shut off the DS from within the software program itself, was with DSLinux and you had to explicitly type the "poweroff" command first. Otherwise, we've got a perfectly good Power button we can use if we want to shut off the system. There's no sense in dedicating one of the 12 buttons on the console for the sole purpose of powering it off.

The libnds examples must have changed since I last programmed for the DS. At that time, it was pretty much cardinal rule number 1 to NEVER EVER return from Main() or else the system will shut off, and that was a very bad thing.

All I'm saying is, you can keep the return-to-menu function for the 3DS; I understand it's very common there. But please disable it for the *.nds version because I'm not the only person who finds it frustrating. Simply commenting out the "return 0" is all it would take for a quick fix without having to bother changing the entire behavior project-wide.

Thanks for listening, and keep up the great work!

I've just added a check for if a bootstub (something to load into on returning from main) exists before quitting on START, so now it'll quit to the loader if run from TWiLight Menu++ or HBMenu, but from anything else it'll just ignore it. I've also increased the size of the enter and delete buttons:


There was a nice amount of room in the bottom corners so decided to simply expand them to fill those out more.

As per most of my projects it has automated builds with GitHub actions, or I'll likely do another release in the morning. Just gonna wait incase I notice any problems when it's not 4 AM

 

[Pk11]

Version 1.1.0

What's new?

• Wordle DS will now only quit on START press if loaded from a menu that supports returning to it (TWiLight Menu++ or HBMenu)
• Enter and Backspace keys have been made larger

Download on GitHub or Universal-DB

Wordle DS 248 4/6

 

[DanTheManMS]

The clock rolled over past midnight so I gave the new version a test. Excellent, this is everything I wanted. I pressed the Start button everywhere and not once did it turn the system off. That check for a bootstub before returning from Main() was the perfect fix.

Wordle DS 249 5/6

 

[Pk11]

Version 1.2.0 - Proper win messages

What's new?

• There are now the proper messages on winning instead of just a generic "Congratulations!"
  • I was originally too lazy to add proper text rending but then I did it anyways for the stats menu so there wasn't a reason for that anymore
    The loss message is still different since I really like the animation I did for that ;P
• Proper Unicode handling
  • Doesn't affect English Wordle at all, but if anyone wants to modify this for another language or such it'll now be much easier; any European language should be as simple as editing a couple images, the keyboard layout, and the word lists
• The current version number is now shown in the settings menu

Download on GitHub or Universal-DB

Wordle DS 257 5/6

 

[JLO64]

I just downloaded this game this past week onto my 3DS (via Universal Updater) and I love it! I've been aware of how easy it is to clone the original's word list but even so, solving it on my 3DS and comparing it to the NYT's version and getting the same result was amazing!

My only complaint (I can deal with it though) is the size of the letters on the bottom screen. Is there any particular reason why they're so small and over a third of the screen is blank or is it just a personal preference?

One last (dumb) question, what happens in this version of the game when it runs out of words? My understanding of the official verson's word list is that it'll run out in 2026. However, I set my 3DS time to 2028 and it still gave me a word to solve. I'm just curious if it loops the same order of words or if it just picks a word at random.

Wordle DS 259 5/6

 

[CeeDee]

man, shoulda called it worDSle

Still impressive though, nice work! Wild to see Wordle being crammed onto any device like it's Doom.

 

[Pk11]

Version 1.3.0 - Larger keyboard and QR codes

What's new?

• The keyboard keys have been made a bit larger
• A QR code with your latest game's results can now be shown from the statistics menu

Download on GitHub or Universal-DB

Wordle DS 270 X/6

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I just downloaded this game this past week onto my 3DS (via Universal Updater) and I love it! I've been aware of how easy it is to clone the original's word list but even so, solving it on my 3DS and comparing it to the NYT's version and getting the same result was amazing!

My only complaint (I can deal with it though) is the size of the letters on the bottom screen. Is there any particular reason why they're so small and over a third of the screen is blank or is it just a personal preference?

One last (dumb) question, what happens in this version of the game when it runs out of words? My understanding of the official verson's word list is that it'll run out in 2026. However, I set my 3DS time to 2028 and it still gave me a word to solve. I'm just curious if it loops the same order of words or if it just picks a word at random.

tbh I just choose 16×16 because it was an exact size for sprites and seemed alright lol, I tried making them a bit bigger (23×23) and yeah it's a lot better so that's changed in the new release.

Both this and the official version will simply loop the word list after it finishes (which will happen on October 15th 2027), there is one very minor difference in that Wordle DS will also loop the word list if your date is set to the past (since I used an unsigned integer so it underflows instead of going negative) where the official version will error if you try to play it before June 19th 2021, for any date after that though the word should be identical and it should always work.

 

[JLO64]

Thanks for the update! It feels weird seeing a suggestion of mine being implemented into something I use daily, but that’s the beauty of homebrew development at work! Also, the QR code is a great idea as well (I used it for my results down below).

As it stands now, I’m pretty content with calling Wordle DS perfect for playing Wordle. It’s honestly pretty surprising how well this game is suited towards a dual screen device. Several years ago, this application easily could have been sold on the DSi Ware shop.

Wordle DS 272 4/6

 

[Pk11]

Version 1.3.1 - Hard mode fixes​

Bug fixes​

• Fixes hard mode letter counts not being reloaded on close and reopen, allowing for guesses that were missing letter you knew
• Fixes green letters not being counted correctly for the letter counts in hard mode, breaking when you have one green and one yellow of the same letter
• Fixes hard mode not allowing making guesses with more than the known amount of letters

Other changes​

• WordleDS.json is now minified to not waste SD space, you can prettify it with tools such as json prettify if you need to edit it for whatever reason

As usual, download on GitHub or Universal-DB

Wordle DS 281 3/6

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Whoops, hard mode was quite broken I guess. I try my best to test things but it seems I'm very bad at breaking my own software lol

 

[Pk11]

Version 1.3.2 - Update word list​

Changes​

• Updates the word list to match the official version, the NY Times moved 17 upcoming words to the end for some reason

Bug fixes​

• Fixes the streak not resetting on loss

As usual, download on GitHub or Universal-DB

Wordle DS 284 5/6

(My score today is from v1.3.1 as I was spoiled on the official word when learning they changed it. The original word for today was HARRY.)

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I honestly didn't think they'd change the list again after the few they removed on switching to NY Times, and even weirder is how they did it. They didn't add or remove any words, simply moved 17 upcoming words from the next month or so to the end.

 

[ZiggityZeke]

Hi, how hard would it be to create a dark theme?

 

[Pk11]

Hi, how hard would it be to create a dark theme?

Probably not all that hard, tbh I just got a little lazy since and didn't feel like making the graphics twice.

If you want you could fork it, source is linked in the OP, and there's some info on how to modify it in the README. Should be fairly simple to replace the light theme with a dark theme, just edit the images and maybe the palettes at the top of gfx.cpp. To add a toggleable dark theme would be a little more effort but still shouldn't be all that tricky, I might look into it soon™ or I'd be happy to accept a PR adding it.

 

[JLO64]

Probably not all that hard, tbh I just got a little lazy since and didn't feel like making the graphics twice.

If you want you could fork it, source is linked in the OP, and there's some info on how to modify it in the README. Should be fairly simple to replace the light theme with a dark theme, just edit the images and maybe the palettes at the top of gfx.cpp. To add a toggleable dark theme would be a little more effort but still shouldn't be all that tricky, I might look into it soon™ or I'd be happy to accept a PR adding it.

NGL, I’ve been thinking about this one myself. I’ve been meaning to screw around with devkitpro myself, and this seems like a good chance to do so. I can definitely get a working dark mode only version in a day or two, but I’m less confident about a toggleable version. I’ll post a link to a github repo once I have something.