I’ve resisted writing about it, but have finally caved and decided to write the obligatory column on Wordle. In fact, cue cymbal splash, I wondered whether this feature should be rechristened Wordle Up to mark the occasion.

I suspect readers of this column will be split into two camps on this. Some of you may be rolling their eyes and turning the page: the rest of you (I don’t have favourite readers, but if I did, etc) will be nodding along and asking, so what is your starter word?

The game was created by Josh Wardle, for his partner, Palak Shah. The idea is simple: you have six guesses to work out what the day’s five letter word is. Get the right letter in the right place, and the square goes green: get the right letter in the wrong place, and it’s yellow.

Older readers might remember the Mastermind game from the seventies, which used a similar system for players to guess a sequence of four coloured pegs. Wordle builds on the same idea, but in a wordy as well as logical way. In a Goldilocks way, the game is not too easy or too difficult, but just right.

Towards the end of last year, Wardle made the game public and, crucially, added the ability to share your results to others, with the row of yellow and green squares. It has since spread like wildfire, leading to multiple versions in different languages, harder alternatives (the double word Dordle), rude versions (Lewdle) and even sci-fi versions (Star Wordle). The game has since been snapped up by the New York Times, landing Wardle a cool $1 million and the rest of us hoping the game doesn’t disappear behind a paywall.

Wordle is the latest in a long line of puzzle crazes. Back in 2004, The Times published its first ever Sudoku puzzle: pretty soon, its numbers grid was ubiquitous.

Scroll back to 1913, and Arthur Wynne created the first ‘Word Cross’. As the crossword craze took hold, the New York Times was one of those sniffy about the latest fad – ‘a primitive form of mental exercise’ it declared. The newspaper didn’t publish its first crossword until 1942: maybe the snapping up of Wordle is to ensure it is ahead of the curve this time?

Everyone Wordles differently. I do mine first thing in the morning with a cup of tea. I have a stock range of possible starters – Times, Later, Audio – but often just plump for the first five letter word that comes into my head (often Bacon, when I’m feeling hungry). But if anyone has any tips of great words to begin with, do spread the wordle!