After playing 498 days in a row, my score today in Bongo was the second-highest in the world:
There’s a difference between casual online games that have a right answer, and those that are open-ended.
In crossword puzzles and most of the games from the Times (like Wordle and Connections) you’re trying to guess what the puzzle constructor had in mind. This can lead to frustration, because the idiosyncratic nature of inventing clues and answers means that you might not be in sync with the person at the other end. They’re inherently closed systems.
Bongo, on the other hand, is generative and combinatorial. There are bazillions of possible right answers, and your goal is to find a right answer that’s worth more points than anyone else’s. It doesn’t matter that I invented the game, I have no advantage over everyone else, because we all begin with the same tiles.
For me, open-ended games are time well spent. Have fun.