Things I’ve learned about myself these past few days: I can identify Dreams by Fleetwood Mac in a single second, but I need 16 seconds to identify 7 rings by Ariana Grande. I’m comfortable with this knowledge about myself. Here’s the thing about Heardle: where Wordle and Worldle are puzzle games, Heardle feels more like a straight trivia game. It’s almost always possible to work your way towards the answer in Wordle with a basic vocabulary, and the arrows and distance information in Worldle lets you investigate your way towards the solution even when you don’t recognise the country’s silhouette. In Heardle, you either know the song or you don’t - and that remains true even as you extend the length of the clip from 1 second up to its maximum. For this reason, while I appreciate the once-a-day limitation in all of these Wordlelikes, Heardle is the first where I wish there were alternate modes. I want a once-a-day Heardle for 90s Britpop, 00s electropop, and so on. Yes, this is a transparent attempt to make the game easier for me, but I’m not ashamed. Give me a once-a-day Heardle about identifying Jon Brion songs from the I Heart Huckabees soundtrack. I’m ready. This is nitpicking, anyway. My bedtime routine now includes post-midnight games of Wordle, Werdle, Worldle, Octordle and Heardle. I haven’t slept in weeks! Join me by playing the new Heardle later tonight.
