ABOUT WORDIF
A little background on the game, the rating plate, your score, your stats, some trivia, and how data is handled.
Index
Who am I?
I’m Chris Dalmau, a dad, husband and electronics engineer from Gloucestershire. I like reading, writing, design and making things.
Recently, most of my spare time has gone into designing Wordif, which started as a small idea and gradually turned into a daily word game.
Thanks to my wife for supporting me, being my first player, providing invaluable feedback and putting up with the many evenings of “just one more tweak!”.
The Rating Plate
The rating plate gives you a two-word rating: consistency first, performance second.
Stats & streaks
Games Played Total
The number of daily games you have started on this device/browser.
Momentum
Your momentum runs from 0 to 60. Playing a day adds 1, and missing a day removes 1.
Win Streak
Your win streak increases when you uncover the hidden word. A loss, missed day or unfinished game resets the streak.
Win Streak Max
Your longest win streak so far on this device/browser.
Performance Points
Your current Performance score out of 100: up to 50 points from your win streak and up to 50 from medals earned in won games over the last 10 calendar days. This is separate from the single-game score used on Friends leaderboards.
Medals
Medals from won games are added to your totals. Gold, Silver and Bronze medals improve your Performance rating; ducks are recorded but add nothing. Medals from lost games are not banked.
Stats are stored locally on your device/browser, so they may not follow you if you change device, browser or clear site data.
Trivia
Inspired by Wordle, Wordif started life back in March 2022. It began as an Excel project, with the game logic written in Visual Basic. That early version proved the core idea: a hidden word, a grid of letters, guessed words, discovery and rewards.
I’m not a software developer by trade, and after designing the initial concept, I quickly realised the scale of the challenge involved in turning the idea into a fully fledged online game. At that point, Wordif came to a halt. But it was not forgotten.
Later that year, ChatGPT was launched. I was a slow adopter of AI, and it was not until late 2024 that I really started exploring what it could do. Around mid-2025, I tried using AI to help develop Wordif through vibe coding. At the time, I found the process clunky and prone to errors, so once again the project went back on hold.
By early 2026, AI had moved on meaningfully. The tools were better, the reasoning was stronger, and the development process became much more workable. That was the point where I was able to restart Wordif and keep pushing it towards a launch-ready state.
My approach was to use AI as a kind of surrogate development team. I played the role of architect: shaping the game mechanics, questioning the structure, testing the logic, refining the UI and pushing the overall direction. I did not need to write the code, but I did need to understand how the game should hang together. The more I questioned the AI, the more I learned about software structure, testing, edge cases and the difference between code that works once and code that can be trusted.
That process has left me with a great respect for developers, and also a real respect for AI. Using AI did not mean pressing a button and getting a finished product. I still had to apply myself. It needed patience, curiosity and a willingness to keep iterating. Wordif exists because AI made the project possible, but it only became a real game through persistence, judgement, testing and a lot of tweaking. Finally, a big thanks to the dedicated few who helped me iterate through several weeks of beta testing.
Data & privacy
Local game data
Wordif stores game progress, results, statistics, ratings, helper settings and an anonymous player token in your browser. Clearing Wordif’s site data removes these records.
Server and Friends data
Wordif records limited usage data and daily results against an anonymous player ID. Friends groups also store group names, display names and memberships. Display names are visible only within the relevant group. No account, real name or email address is required. Submitted words are not stored on the server.
Hashed invitation codes retain the joining player ID until expiry (7 days from creation), then become eligible for cleanup. This supports safe retries.
Our hosting provider may process request details, IP addresses and browser or device information to operate and secure the service.
Optional advertising measurement
On wordif.com, selecting Accept enables Google Ads cookies to measure advertising effectiveness. Google may receive ad-click identifiers, page details, IP addresses, browser or device information, and an event when you complete the first valid turn of a daily game. Reject optional leaves the Google tag unloaded. Gameplay is unaffected.
Conversion events exclude guessed or hidden words, scores, Friends display names and Wordif player tokens. This integration does not enable personalised advertising or Google Analytics.
Your choice is stored for up to 180 days. If you accept, a local first-turn record is retained for up to 90 days to prevent duplicate events. Google may also store advertising cookies.
Use Cookie settings to change or withdraw consent. Withdrawal stops future gameplay events and clears accessible first-party Google advertising cookies and Wordif’s event record, without deleting game progress or statistics. Pages using the tag reload. Data already sent to Google is not deleted.
Optional advertising measurement is off until permitted.Sharing
Results are shared only through your device’s sharing controls. Wordif does not publish them automatically.