Tomorrow, I’ll get into the results of my “nested book titles” experiment, and I’ll have a technique that other wordplay artists can steal, as well as a file of book titles you can download for personal use.
But tonight I’m going to talk a little about the word game Waffle. More specifically, I want to talk about its user interface, which seems to be a key to its relative success.
Waffle is a Web-based app in the general vein of Wordle, with a crosswordy twist. Users are given 19 tiles and must shuffle them to create words, three words across and three down. Letters that are shown on green squares are already where they’re supposed to be. Yellow squares are in the correct row…or column…or both, but not the correct place.
And gray squares are not in the correct row or column…unless there’s another square with the same letter earlier in the row or column that’s already taking the green or yellow “credit.” (Note the right-hand column of the game below. Its finished version must have two E’s, one in its first position and one in its third. Nothing else would make sense!)
It’s fun enough, but a lot of these games have competed for my loyalty in the last couple of years. Why does this one not only compel my loyalty but even seem like a topic worth exploring here?
Well, as I tell Janice, “I’m a simple man. I just want a game that praises me like it’s a proud parent and I’m a three-year-old child who’s just learned to spell ‘refrigerator.’”
If you finish the game with five swaps remaining (the most efficient performance possible), the screen will explode into constantly changing colors, like a fireworks display to celebrate fall instead of Independence Day or the New Year. The five-star score is shown under a headline and subhead of enthusiasm, with lead phrases like “GENIUS!,” “BINGO BANGO!,” “JUMPING JELLY STICKS!,” “FANDABIDOZI!,” “GREAT SCOTT!,” and “BEARD OF ZEUS!” Drier but still effusive praise underneath the headline reinforces the message: “Top notch. You have serious talent.”
All this enthusiasm might seem a bit much, if not an outright lie. I mean, sure, it’s nice to score well in a goofy online game, but it’s not really that big a deal.
Still, I’ve played a lot of online games by now, and I’ve found none that work harder to amp up that little adrenaline rush you get from solving, those three seconds of Yeah, that’s right. You thought you could trick me, huh? Sorry, my brain’s just too dang smart. And I’ve found none of those games—not even Wordle itself—that I’m still coming back to so often, nearly a year after first discovering it.
There’s probably a connection there.