[This is the continuation of Seth Godin’s blog post from the other day to see where he’s heading. He’s developed a word game! Note to Seth: you’re not the only one trying to follow in Wordle’s footsteps. SB SM]
There have been popular casual games since the newspaper started carrying the crossword in 1913. But limited by the available space in the newspaper, the medium was fairly small. Once again, the smartphone is a game changer, but so was the rise of the attention economy and the growth of development tools.
Lots of games have shown up online, some built with the basics of HTML/CSS/JS. Games which want to keep track of your progress might require adding backend languages, databases, and a cloud platform. More complex interactive games may need game engines (Unity, Phaser), or a front-end framework (React / Redux which is what Puzzmo uses). None of the game creators built all of these from scratch… the system evolves as software enables forward motion.
A challenge in working with media systems is the delay. There’s a moment when the system needs more creators, and then, months or years later, the arrival of new content from those creators. This leads to a cycle of shortage and surplus, and the whipsawing can make it difficult to sustainably create useful content.
Netflix and the streaming wars set off a frenzy in creating a certain kind of content, but as that content came online, the amount of attention (and money) available to support it began to spread ever thinner.
It’s also possible to go too soon, to decide that there’s a business model when there actually isn’t one, and to build a pioneer homestead on the edge of the desert.
Thanks to Wordle, the New York Times is now a casual games company with a small news division. They’ve taken the business model and head start that they had from crosswords and multiplied it. But Puzzmo and others are betting that there’s room for something even better, and their traction is proof that they might be right.
Bongo is an expression of how much I love designing casual games (video games give me a headache) but it’s also possible to do this work because the system was ready to support it.
There’s a new game today. I hope you get a chance to check it out and share it. Here’s my best word of the day.
By the way, our friends at The Browser have come up with a game of their own:
https://thebrowser.com/nomido-game/?ref=the-browser-newsletter
Puzzle games are quite controversial in this household. Silverbelle Sandy plays Wordle, Categories, and Spelling Bee. Me? I’d rather write bad poetry, like this:
You Can’t Rhyme Wordle with an “i”
unless you wear a girdle.
You can’t rhyme Wordle with a “u”
unless you jump a hurdle.
You can’t spell Wordle with a “y”
unless you’re Larry Byrdle.
Rhyme Wordle with an “e”
then you’re a Wordle Nerdle.
But rhyming Wordle with an “a”?
Well, that would be absurdle.