32 Wordles?! Bryan Chen on Building Duotrigordle

About this episode

Bryan Chen discusses his journey in creating Duotrigordle and the evolution of his programming projects.

Bryan Chen joins Nate Kadlac and Aaron Kardell on Hey, Good Game to unravel how a simple coding side project exploded into Duotrigordle , the 32-Wordle brain buster beloved by millions. A computer science student at the University of Waterloo, Bryan walks us through his programming journey from C# exercises in grade school to building viral games during online college lockdowns. The episode explores how Duotrigordle evolved from a dorm-room Discord link into one of the most beloved—and chaotic—Wordle spinoffs online. The trio discusses Bryan’s inspirations (from Waffle to Magic: The Gathering ), why he values intuitive UX over flashy features, and how he’s balancing indie game maintenance with his academic and career goals. Bryan also opens up about monetization, treating side projects as portfolio pieces, and the emotional payoff of seeing friends unknowingly become fans of his work. Favorite Games Mentioned by Bryan Chen Magic: The Gathering – His all-time favorite Wordle – Foundational inspiration Octordle / Quordle – Multi-board Wordle influences Waffle – Admired for clean design and visual polish League of Legends – Used its API as a test project Tetris (AI bot project) – As…

People in this episode

Hosts: Nate Kadlac, Aaron Kardell

Guest: Bryan Chen

Topics covered

• game development
• viral games
• programming journey
• indie game
• user experience
• monetization

Keywords

• Duotrigordle
• Bryan Chen
• game development
• Wordle
• programming
• indie games
• user experience
• monetization

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: University of Waterloo

Products: Duotrigordle, Wordle, Magic: The Gathering, Octordle, Quordle, Waffle, League of Legends, Tetris

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