I’ve been thinking about Wordle ever since it came out: why it took off and what other games could use the same template.

Wordle is a game that

  1. Takes less than 5 minutes.
  2. Seems intellectual.
  3. Has inherent virality because people sharing their score on social media.
  4. Other people can play instantly in response and share their own score in response.
  5. People have a reason to come back: A new challenge every day.
  6. Has no guilt associated like other addictive games that waste your time.
  7. Can become a ritual.

Our parents started the day with the newspaper crossword. Our generation is doing the same with these NYT games.

I have been thinking about games for a long time. Flappy Bird was another interesting one. Simple mechanics.

Thanks to Claude Sonnet, it is very easy to make these simple games. You just have to work backwards from the shareability angle. And have a strong hook.