Wordle has taken the world by storm with it's simple game play, great UX and an addictive mechanism (without any lock ins). Over the past few days with NYT taking over, the words have gotten harder and there is quite a lot of backlash.
Here's a few reasons that come to mind :
* It's Social : The social share of Wordle let to it virality - who wants to share an unsuccessful attempt ?
* It's Emotional : Dopamine is the hormone released when we complete a task or accomplish something (no matter how small it is). With an unsuccessful task, the lack of dopamine hits you harder. As the task gets difficult, the resistance increases - after all this is played for leisure while travelling, multi tasking etc.
* It's Personal : You don't want to be reminded of your English competency time and again. Plus many of the players use this as a bonding activity - playing /sharing with kids, parents etc. The Oxford level English is beyond their scope altogether. Who uses CAULK and SWILL in their daily conversations ?
Hope NYT is able to add a novel easy spin and revive it to the enjoyable level it was - else like many one time wonder products, this one too might fizzle out.
Here are some hilaroius tweets :
