I'm not planning on stopping anytime soon. I'm sure I will eventually but for now it's a fun quick puzzle that I'm not allowed to get sucked into for more than 10 minutes a day.

Seriously trying to internalize some design lessons from it and might pivot a couple puzzle game ideas (that are still pretty early) to incorporate some of the ideas of Wordle. Unforunately those puzzle ideas aren't quite as inherently viral, in that they pretty much just have one solution and not multiple paths to a solution you can show off...but at least the one set challenge per day I can incorporate.

Same.

Draw Something was a frenzy of novelty and delight. It wore out fast. I went from playing a dozen times a day to never opening it again within a month.

Wordle is something I do like clockwork every morning. Along with 4 friends in a group text. Just like a daily crossword puzzle, or a Jumble, or whatever Cracking the Cryptic posts on their Youtube channel.

The only thing that will stop me is if NYT decides to get heavy-handed with it. Ads and subscriptions and other gross bullshit will kill this game fast.

I'm not sure that will last, though. I told myself that, and then I "solved" it. 4 words, with no overlap, covering most of the common letters... it's near impossible to lose. I went through the archive, needed to use the 6th row for just one out of 20 or so puzzles.

Sure, there are more optimal solutions for individual puzzles, but it's no longer much fun - it pretty much reduces to just solving an anagram.

No-one I know plays it simply to win. I like starting with a new word every day just to see where it takes me. It's a meditative ritual. When we actually lose that itself becomes a fun topic to discuss.

Yeah, exactly. I mostly try a different word each day. It is most optimal? Nah, but then I'm basically just turning up the difficulty level a bit.

You solved easy mode. Now play on hard mode. And force yourself to choose a unique starting word each day. It'll be fun again, and you might get it in less than 5 words.

I've added my own extra rule that I have to retain any existing knowledge from row to row, so green letters have to stay in place, yellow letters have to be included (and moved), and grey letters can't be used again (not that you'd generally want to).

I think that keeps it much more fresh from day to day, although I haven't thought too hard about meta strategies. I always input the same first word but then go from there just using what comes to mind first without violating any of my current "rules".

That's basically what hard mode is in the settings. I don't stick to that strictly so I haven't turned it on, but I do mostly do what you say. Sometimes I'll let a guess not include those letters though, especially if I'm struggling.

TIL Wordle has settings. Interesting, thanks!

Basically just toggles for Hard Mode, Dark Theme, and Color Blind Mode, and links for his email and twitter, but yep, it has them.

From what I've read about ML solvers, if you know the solution dictionary (2500ish words) you should be able to never lose, and solve in roughly 3.5 rounds on average. So, from a mechanical perspective you are underperforming the robots.

I am too, and I know it, so I play with the secondary purpose of getting creative with my word choice. Find a starting point, a new combination of words every day. React to the information from your completed rounds. Try out hard mode. etc.

> Seriously trying to internalize some design lessons from it

I've thought about this too. Should all games in the future be limited to just one game a day? Lots of puzzles could easily support this, but I'd be worried that it annoyed my users more than it made them happy...

I already found a clone that lets me play historical puzzles in succession. I think the puzzle mechanic is neat, and when I'm in the mood I want to play it for a bunch of rounds until I get tired of it, then put it down for potentially many days. I'm not interested in the daily hook thing—I think it's a scummy pattern (even though I share the admiration of having it free of ads and tracking).

Why do you think it's a scummy pattern?

Because it’s an artificial limitation that only serves to benefit the creator of the game by getting players to come back every day.