Today's Hurdle FAQs

[AARPLynne]

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.

[Heather53344]

Well, people scoring 16200 are playing the game using multiple logons - not sure if you consider that cheating or not, but it is funny the effort people take to get their name on the leaderboard.  Also, if you search "Arkadium Game Scoring", you can find a description on how each of their games are scored.

[RichardW604749]

To get 16,200 points, you need to guess every word on the first guess. Some of the words have no clues. So, it would seem virtually impossible to guess every word.

However, the rules mention "Gems", which can provide clues. That could be the answer. How does one get a Gem?

[Kat903213V]

Yep!  I had a friend provide me with the answers to one of the daily games just to see if that's how all those 16,200s are being achieved.  There's no way I'd have guessed each of those words without some sort of clue but, yeah, when I put in the words I'd been provided with my score was 16,200.  I kinda felt cheated, not because others are clearly cheating to get their name on the leaderboard (I consider it cheating since that particular game is intended to be played only once a day by each person) but because I didn't get to actually play the game that day.  You would think that by the time we're of AARP age, we'd be beyond that sort of manipulation.  And, really, what kind of satisfaction can you get out of seeing I681753m on the leaderboard with a score of 16200?  LOL!

[KeithB811680]

the games aren't made by or for AARP specifically - they are provided by Arkadium which allows several other websites to make those games available via their site. AARP just links to the games on that site.

[kj4758]

Please tell me that all this nonsense about scores on a phone game aren't voting age adults... else we're doomed...

[Kat903213V]

It's gotten to the point where if I don't play as soon after Midnight as possible, I don't even want to play.  If I wait 'til the next afternoon, it's just a string of 16200's.  I noticed someone who was always getting 10800 (meaning a perfect score on the standard game) and I wondered why she wasn't playing Hard mode if she knew all the answers.  Clearly she hadn't figured that out until the past week or so because when I log in to play each day, she's already at the top of the list with a 16200.  I can't help but wonder if they really think they're fooling anyone.

[lschulte62]

I've noticed the excessive scores too. Thankfully, I play for the personal challenge & fulfillment and let the cheaters wallow in their own pitiful egos. Don't let them spoil your fun.

I love the games. Now I've just learned Mahjong

Add tags

[JeffreyN565193]

Agree with you 100 percent. So tired of seeing the same names every day with a score of 16,200. People like TheElderlyOne need to get a life and do something meaningful with their lives like volunteering for a good cause rather than cheating themselves and boring others with their attempt to be important. Barffffff…

[AARPTeri]

We have a tip for How can I maximize my score in Today's Hurdle - https://community.aarp.org/t5/Leave-a-Game-Tip/How-can-I-maximize-my-score-in-Today-s-Hurdle/td-p/24...