Are you, too, totally hooked on Wordle?

Hands up if you are hooked on the new (ish) word game Wordle? For those of you who have been truly isolated from civilisation for the last few months (that means no television, no internet, no newspapers) Wordle was created by Josh Wardle, an American programmer for his word game crazy partner.
It is a simple concept - you have six attempts to guess the day’s five letter word. You enter your guess at what the word could be.
Get a letter correct and in the right position and it goes green. Get a correct letter but in the wrong position and it goes a sort of mucky yellow. If a letter is wrong it turns grey. Simples.
I stumbled across Wordle in January after spotting a post from a family friend on Facebook. Old Josh certainly knew how to build an audience – you can share your success, or lack of it, on social media.
This friend had shared his first attempt with his Facebook “friends” but it only showed a coloured-in grid and the number of attempts it had taken him. In this case it was four.
Needless to say, being a person of addictive persuasion I tried my first puzzle – and was immediately hooked. Every day now starts with a Wordle.
The game was made public, free of charge, in October last year and quickly became an internet phenomenon across the world.
Its playing audience skyrocketed from only 90 on November 1, 2021 to two million by mid-January.
It was only a matter of time before such success attracted big business and at the end of January Wordle was bought by the New York Times (NYT) for “an undisclosed price in the low seven figures”.
Josh Wardle said that running the hugely popular game has “been a little overwhelming,” especially considering that he was the only person who actually handled running the entire game.
The NYT said it will “initially remain free to new and existing players” on the newspaper’s site.
This is the same New York Times that has a well-established paywall on its site.
I’ll give it three months before Wordle is monetarised.