Good design is often subtle and easy to dismiss, especially for smart engineers. You might remember the "What's the deal? It's just mastermind with letters" comments here and elsewhere. I agree with the article that Wordle got many little things right, and I think that's a huge part of its success.
I wonder how long it will stay that way under NY Times ownership. Just today, I was greeted with a new cookie prompt that covered up the keyboard on mobile Safari and wouldn't disappear without a refresh. Not a good sign of things to come.
It's coming one step at a time. First the subtle side bar linking to their other games. They diverged from the answer list. Next they removed all bad words from the dictionary like "bitch" and so on. Now the cookie stuff.
I wonder how long it will stay that way under NY Times ownership. Just today, I was greeted with a new cookie prompt that covered up the keyboard on mobile Safari and wouldn't disappear without a refresh. Not a good sign of things to come.