The New York Instances has sued an offshoot of its viral internet sport Wordle. Once more. If I needed to guess, the phrase of the day is “petty.”

This time, the [insert-word-here]-le sport on the authorized chopping block is Worldle, a geography-themed puzzle sport designed by Seattle-based developer Kory McDonald. Averaging round 100,000 gamers a month, Worldle presents you with the define of a selected nation or territory and challenges you to guess which one it’s. It’s like a extremely condensed model of The place within the World is Carmen Sandiego?, however you aren’t in search of a trench-coated spy.

Sadly, Worldle is now within the crosshairs of the New York Instances, which bought Wordle from its authentic developer, Josh Wardle, for an undisclosed seven-figure sum again in 2022. In a authorized doc obtained by the BBC, The New York Instances argues that McDonald is making an attempt to “trigger confusion” and make the most of Wordle’s “monumental goodwill”.

I’ll be the primary to confess that Worldle shares quite a lot of DNA strands with Wordle, however McDonald is way from the primary developer to coast off of Wordle’s success. There’s a Wordle clone for mathematicians, music lovers, and Pokemon followers. I’m particularly keen on the final one, myself.

This isn’t even the primary time the New York Instances has sicced the metaphorical hounds on a sport impressed by Wordle. The newspaper has confirmed to be immensely protecting of what has change into one in every of its most marketable investments, submitting DMCAs towards many Wordle-inspired video games. If there’s an -le on the finish of its title, the sport might as effectively paint a goal on itself.

Thankfully for Worldle followers, McDonald instructed the BBC that he’s not letting his sport go down with no struggle, telling the interviewer that “worst-case situation, we’ll change the identify, however I feel we’ll be okay.”