After using WordleBot [0] for a few days, it became clear that my last "random" guess was often the only choice left, so from this sense, this anti-wordle seems impossibly hard.
[0] https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/upshot/wordle-bot.h...
[0] https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/upshot/wordle-bot.h...
Seems like the perfect popular game: be easy enough for most everyone to get, but just hard enough to give a feeling of mastery.
I had a similar feeling when playing Guitar Hero way back. It was pretty easy to get the hang of at a medium level, but it was just hard enough that it felt like an accomplishment. Plus the "output" you got from playing the game well (a complex, professionally played song) was wildly disproportionate to to your inputs (a bit of well-timed button mashing that had a far simpler in structure). The mistakes screwing up the song sealed the illusion of skill.
Not everything has to be pass/fail, and most things in life aren't.
I came up with it on my own. I derived it from some introspection on how Guitar Hero made me feel, and realizing it tricked me into feeling a false sense of competence, like I could actually play those songs well.
If you keep in mind that it is not, indeed, a real guitar, the sense of accomplishment doesn't have to be false. When I full combo a fairly difficult song, especially if it's one that I've gotten close but not quite got, it really feels like an accomplishment. Also, I'm active on the modding side of things for GH1/2/80s/RB, and that is where my true sense of accomplishment has rested. I've been involved with the mod projects Guitar Hero II Deluxe, Rock Band 2 Deluxe, and Rock Band 3 Deluxe, all of which have been wildly successful within the GH community.