View from the North 40: Friends don't let friends get hooked on Quordle

Just like the headline says, friends do not let friends get hooked on Quordle.

“What is Quordle?” you might be asking. If you have a good life, a happy and fulfilled life you are definitely asking yourself that.

The naive and sympathetic are lamenting, I’m certain. “Have you gone and got yourself hooked on some new gateway drug that the nefarious street dealers are calling Quordle?”

And thank you for caring, but no, you have it all wrong. The gateway drug is Wordle a 5-letter-word guessing/spelling game, this has led me to its harder-times-4 cousin, Quordle.

Stupid, stupid, pointless, brain-teasy word games. They tricks my mind. They calls to me in the darks, in the light timeses, too.

They are my precious.

And that’s only mildly exaggerated, even with my tendency toward drama.

I’m not into the live-action, role-playing, joy-stick-using games. I like what are called analog games, the ones that could, for the most part, also be played without a computer.

So, yes, the computer just makes it so I don’t need decks of cards and board games and lots of scrap paper around my house. You’re welcome environment.

The trees, I think, should be hugging me.

I like to think that I am expanding my everyday repertoire of 5-letter words and becoming aware of — at one with — the English language through my interaction with these word games. That's the upside.

So here’s the gist of the game: You have six chances to guess a five-letter word. It’s that simple. You can’t just guess letters — this isn’t Wheel of Fortune — you have to use a word. With each guess the game indicates which letters are or are not in the word and if the letter is in the right spot. Still simple.

It doesn’t, however, tell you if one of the letters you guessed is used twice, so when you first start playing, your brain might take as long to get from “speak” to “speed” as it did to get from “atone” to “speak.” And then just when you get used to the idea that one of the letters could appear twice the game throws “nanny” at you. Three N’s, you trickster.

And English seems weird enough when you have D, I, T and S mocking your ignorance because you can’t think of a combination with any available letters and you have to sleep on it before you remember “midst.” Your brain says “oh, of course” but it’s also saying “English is hard.”

But you really understand how hard it is when faced with “_oun_” and you realize that you can pretty quickly come up with 12 possible solutions, but have three guesses left.

Sure, you can eliminate a lot of the competition with the right guess. But if your choice gets you to “_und” which has at least eight different possible solutions and you have three chances left — that right there is the point when you realize it’s too much of a game of chance to waste your time on. Right?

It’s one thing if it’s a test of skill that I need to rise up to meet, but stupid chance? I’m out.

Wordle has become a hot new game in the last year or so, but I remembered it from years ago. Josh Wardle (Wordle with an A, get it?) created the first version of the game in 2013 and somehow I had access to that game on my computer, and I was addicted, until I had too many of those “could be bound, found, hound, mound, pound, round, sound or wound” games.

I quit cold turkey.

When Wardle put a recent version of Wordle on social media during the pandemic, people started playing en masse, but not me because I’m suspicious of anything popular. However, the name kept nagging at my brain. So, yeah, I casually looked it up and remembered liking the game, thought I’d just play just one or two rounds for old times sake. No biggy.

That’s a worn-out old addiction tale.

But, hey. Yay, me. I quit cold turkey again when I came up against my old, by-chance, “_ound” word-guessing game.

I was gone from the Wordle game cycle for good.

Then a friend made some introductions. ... There’s another old tale of addiction, right?

And I’m talking about a good friend, my best friend, someone I call sister, someone I trust, and she sent me a link to Quordle. This game involves guessing/deciphering four 5-letter words at the same time. Four at once!

That’s ridiculous.

That’s a — that’s a challenge accepted.

That’s a lot, and I mean a lot, of time wasted at the computer. Like it’s a part-time unpaid job at this point.

Or something for which I need to be finding a support group.

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I lost on “eking” the other day because when you sound it out in your head it’s like “E-King.” Eee, King? That’s not a word here where we’re eking out a living at http://www/facebook.com/viewfromthenorth40 .