Play the addictive daily word game as much as you want in this Python variant with optional integration of artificial intelligence (AI). Inspired by the original web-based version developed by Josh Wardle.

NOTE: This repository was created for learning purposes in CSC 3510 (Introduction to Artificial Intelligence) at Florida Southern College.

The code provided here was developed in Python 3.9.5 on Windows 10 using VS Code and a Git Bash terminal. Setup and usage may vary slightly for other operating systems or software tools. At a minimum, you will need the following Python libraries installed:

• colorama
• pynput
• six
• tqdm

In addition, the instructions that follow assume you have properly installed git on your machine. Click here if you need help doing that.

1. The best way to use this code is to clone the repository to your local machine. To do so in VS Code, open a terminal and navigate to the parent directory of your choice using the cd command, e.g.:

    $ cd ~/Documents/csc3510
   

   Then, use git clone to create a new subdirectory called wordle with the code from this repository:

    $ git clone https://github.com/meicholtz/wordle
   

   Go into the directory and make sure the appropriate files are there by using the ls command:

    $ cd wordle
    $ ls
   

2. Before running the code, you need to make sure the required libraries are installed. The recommended way to do this is to create a virtual environment so that you can have separate environments for different projects. To create a virtual environment, use the venv command:

    $ python -m venv /path/to/new/virtual/environment
   

   If you do not have a preferred location for your environments, try putting them in a hidden folder in your home directory, such as:

    $ python -m venv ~/.venv/wordle
   

   Next, you need to activate the virtual environment using the source command:

    $ source ~/.venv/wordle/Scripts/activate
   

   You will know that you have done it correctly if you see the environment name in parentheses in your terminal, e.g. (wordle). After you are in your virtual environment, use pip install to install the libraries you need. It is easiest to do this with the requirements.txt file provided in the repository.

    $ pip install -r requirements.txt
    $ pip list
   

   Note that the second command above will list all installed libraries, which is useful for verification purposes.

Use the following commands to play the game:

• To play Wordle as a human player,

    $ python wordle.py
  

• To play Wordle using an AI player,

    $ python wordle.py -ai ai_player
  

  where ai_player is the name of any file that contains the function makeguess(wordlist, guesses, feedback). As an example, the most basic AI player (i.e. random guessing) is provided in the file ai_dummy.py. To use that AI player,

    $ python wordle.py -ai ai_dummy
  

There are several additional optional parameters that can be passed to wordle.py.

• If you want to speed up gameplay when using an AI player, use

    $ python wordle.py -ai ai_player --fast
  

• If you do not want to track statistics when playing the game (see stats.txt), use

    $ python wordle.py --practice
  

  or

    $ python wordle.py -ai ai_player --practice