I am officially giving a big ol' thanks a lot to "Steve" on Twitter for alerting me to Octordle, a challenging variant of the Wordle word game genre. Octordle has vexed me more than the original or its early offshoots of Dordle (two words) and Quordle (four words). And I keep going back for more.

When I wrote about Quordle in mid-February, I joked about where the madness would end. Turns out it wasn't a joke. Octordle throws down a version of Wordle that asks you to sort out eight different five-letter words at the same time with only 13 guesses to do it in.

The mechanics are familiar. You get clues as to which letters are in each word and which aren't and which ones are simply in the wrong places. While Wordle is a fun, breezy thing I do while sipping my morning coffee, Octordle is more like an all-day battle of attrition. What will give out first? The correct answers? My guesses? My patience?

At first, I thought Octordle would be an afterthought. Too many words. I had to draw the line somewhere. But it's like a little devil on my shoulder, beckoning me to play after I've conquered Wordle, Dordle and Quordle for the day.

I haven't been playing Octordle for long, but I've failed to get all eight words right about a third of the time, whereas I'm pretty much a Wordle ace (despite some early struggles). Do I like losing? No. Is it good for me? Yes. When I lose, it's often because of something silly, like ignoring the letter clues or missing a super-simple word. An Octordle failure is an invitation to reflection, to consider my attention to detail and how I react to frustration.

Octordle is word play and life lessons all in one. And it makes Wordle and its simplicity all the sweeter.