A core feature of the iconic Wordle game, the emoji grid, was created by a New Zealander. 

The entire game, created by New York software engineer Josh Wardle, has just been bought by The New York Times. 

Andrew Chen was one of the early game users.  

Chen told Heather Du Plessis-Allan a Twitter user called Elizabeth S came up with the emoji grid, which people started sharing on social media. 

“There’s a little bit of intrigue if, you know, if you don’t know what the squares mean, you suddenly see them on social media and you want to find out what it is, and I think that was when it really sort of kicked off because people wanted to feel like they were part of the club.” 

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