Conversationalist ⭐⭐⭐

Today's Hurdle FAQs

Forum|Forum|3 years ago
December 21, 2022
42 replies
66200 views

What is Today’s Hurdle?

Today’s Hurdle is a fun, tough twist on Wordle, the popular word-guessing game. If you’ve been caught up in the word-game craze, you’ll love the challenge of Today’s Hurdle!

How does it work?

In Today’s Hurdle, you’ll get six tries to guess a five-letter word. Start by guessing any five-letter word. When you submit it, you’ll see some letters receive a yellow background, and some letters receive a green background.

If the background is green, you’ve guessed the correct letter in the correct spot. If it’s yellow, that letter exists somewhere else in the word. Try to figure out the correct word before using all six tries!

How is Today’s Hurdle different than Wordle?

The basic rules, above, match up with Wordle. But Today’s Hurdle separates itself by offering five puzzles every day.

When you get your first puzzle correct, the final word will pre-populate as the first “guess” of the next puzzle. For instance, if the answer to the first puzzle is “ocean,” the second puzzle will begin with “ocean” already in the first guess. If any of the letters in that word match with the new answer, you’ll see them with yellow or green backgrounds.

Today’s Hurdle has an extra challenge if you get to the fifth and final puzzle of the day. If you’ve guessed all four puzzles correctly, the fifth puzzle will begin with the first four guess slots filled in with the answers of the previous puzzles. That means you get just two guesses to beat the game!

How can I get more points?

The scoring in Today’s Hurdle breaks down like this:

1,000 points for completion of a puzzle
100 points for each unused line

If you finish a puzzle on your fourth guess, you’ll have two unused lines — which means you get 1,200 points!

These rules are the same for all five puzzles — no one puzzle is more important, score-wise, than the others. However, you get an extra bonus for finishing the fifth puzzle. You still get 1,000 points for solving the puzzle, and 100 points if you have an unused line. This time, though, you’ll get 4,000 additional points for winning!

How often can I play a new game of Today’s Hurdle?

A new suite of puzzles will become available every day!

Can I play all five puzzles if I don’t solve one?

No. If you can’t solve one of the puzzles within six guesses, you get a game over for the day.

word

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r767831w

Contributor ⭐⭐

Then how is it possible that the top scorers each day have 14,000+ points?

AARPLynneAuthor

Conversationalist ⭐⭐⭐

Hi, @r767831w, thanks for your question. Anyone scoring above 10,800 is playing in Hard Mode. In hard mode your score will be multiplied by 1.5 so the highest score is 10,800 * 1.5 = 16,200 points.

To enable hard mode, click on the "hamburger" menu in the top left corner, click on Settings and enable the Hard Mode.
Hurdle Settings | Hard Mode

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r767831w

Contributor ⭐⭐

Gotcha, thanks! Suggestion: Put that info in your directions on how to play and score points, so people don't come away thinking that others must be cheating.

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r767831w

Contributor ⭐⭐

I would really like a response to my question about how people are scoring higher than the scoring system permits. Please respond.

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JudyB666681

Contributor ⭐

You must do 2 things. First, you must solve the puzzle in a different browser where you are not logged in to AARP. Then you know the answers. Second, login to your AARP account and go to Today's Hurdle. In settings, turn on Hard Mode to get a 1.5 point multiplier. Then complete the puzzle with the correct answer as the first guess for each puzzle.

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KRISS669

Contributor ⭐

That sounds like cheating to me!

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DeniseL834804

Contributor ⭐

Is there an easier way to get to the game then going through the search function? Why don’t they just put it in the games section?

Vexed

Community Champion ⭐⭐⭐

@DeniseL834804 , you can do several things besides search. The game is listed in the Games section (not here in the community forum - didn't know where you were searching). The main side bar menu reached by clicking the 3 bars with "Menu" under it at top left. Scroll to "Games", click that and it takes to the listing for all Games. At "Word" games grouping click "View More" . That takes you to all the Word game listings and Today's Hurdle is there.

Also, at the bottom of this all games listing page is a "Recently Played". This shows you 3 games that you have recently played. If you haven't played too many games, the Today's Hurdle" link may be there from the day before.

Easiest way is to bookmark this game or your other favorites by whatever method your browser uses. Here is the url link to "Today's Hurdle".

https://games.aarp.org/games/todays-hurdle

Hope this helps.

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KristBelt

Contributor ⭐⭐

https://games.aarp.org/games/todays-hurdle

sadly, today not working.

"loading"

help?

It's my fave game😃

J

JohnM729645

Contributor ⭐

perfect score in hard mode of hurdle is 16,200 pts. for an example, answers for april 26,2023 were as follows: byway,cheap,ridge,fungi-wonky- there are perfect scores posted- i would like to know the odds of an individual guessing exactly the correct responses formally cited- there is obvious cheating occurring (not hard to do) & these perfect scores should be discarded.

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Kat903213V

Contributor ⭐⭐

I so totally agree with you! When the odds are such that NO ONE should be able to attain a score of 16,200, that score should be disallowed. I used to see a particular player always scoring 10,800 which is a perfect score in the easy mode. I kept thinking that she must not know about hard mode because she was getting a perfect score but had to be wondering how others were getting better scores when she was getting all the words right with one guess each. Then one day I logged on to play (I tend to play between midnight and 1 a.m. and she apparently does as well because I always saw her with that 10,800 score) and there she was at the top of the list with a 16,200. She'd found hard mode. She and others with that score can't possibly think that other players think they're really that good; that have to know that we know they've figured out how to play twice so they know all the words. Is it really cheating? Personally I think it is because the game is intended to be played just once a day by each person. It's gotten to the point that if I play later than usual, the top 10 scores are often 16,200 and it's depressing to see that the day's game is already dominated by cheaters.

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Chuckie824

Contributor ⭐

Have N-E-V-E-R made it to the top ten on AARP, BUT on USA Today's Hurdle, I made it to numero uno two or three times, and the top three NUMEROUS times. That no longer HAPPENS out there, the other day I was number 52 with 10,100!! I don't know ANYTHING about whatever this "hard mode" is, but I DID "enjoy" seeing my name up in the top three--that was BEFORE all the cozeners showed up, and took all the sport out of it. Guess everybody gets a trophy nowadays, just like the little kids in school do now... *sigh*

daniel4ever

Contributor ⭐⭐

Is anyone else having a problem seeing their statistics after playing? This started this week, I think. I finish the game, and the statistics page blinks for a second and then goes away and I get a blank patch where it was. I like seeing my stats! This is very annoying!

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c150180a

Contributor ⭐

Same, it’s been happening for a number of weeks

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KristBelt

Contributor ⭐⭐

I finished Hurdle puzzle today, (for the first time😊), clicked "redeem points", but do not see any points reflected in "most recent activity".

K

KristBelt

Contributor ⭐⭐

What? One of today's Hurdle answers could have been one of 4 words that end with the same four letters? That sure makes it super hard to solve the puzzle in 5 lines! Hopefully I'll guess better next time. Hurdle is by far my favorite puzzle on AARP.org. It's more fun than Wordle, though I do like Wordle too.

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