In addition to everything else already discussed — the game is really well done, the sharing feature is inspired, the animations are delightful, etc — the thing about Wordle that makes it so universally popular is that it’s a very easy game that is experientially difficult. You have 6 guesses of 5 letters. There are only 26 letters in the English alphabet. Anyone in the top few deciles of verbal ability should hardly ever lose (if ever, really; I’ve played about 50 times and never “lost”). People further down in verbal ability will still win quite often.
And yet…it actually does engage your brain quite a bit! Despite being ultimately very easy, which people find rewarding, the experience feels challenging.
This is an odd combo. I’m having trouble thinking of any other games with this property. It’s more like a word search than a crossword puzzle. It takes work to complete a word search, but everybody has the tools to do it.
I've lost when I got into a situation with three green letters, no yellow letters, and a ton of valid words remaining with the other 2 slots. Can happen with one open slot too.
In that situation you don't keep guessing at the word... you enumerate the possibilities and guess a word that you know is wrong but will cut down your search space.
And yet…it actually does engage your brain quite a bit! Despite being ultimately very easy, which people find rewarding, the experience feels challenging.
This is an odd combo. I’m having trouble thinking of any other games with this property. It’s more like a word search than a crossword puzzle. It takes work to complete a word search, but everybody has the tools to do it.