Faggle.

Guess letters under the spotlight. Shade is the tiles outside it. If a letter is only in the shade, guessing it still counts as a miss.

Two hits in a row grow the spotlight. Two misses in a row shrink it. One miss alone is safe, as long as your next guess hits.

Solve every lit tile and the spotlight grows on its own. That's how you recover from a bad run.

Shrink it to nothing and you lose. Light the whole word and you win.

Words of 7+ letters start with a tile or two already in shade, so there's no easy read.

Grey keys are used up. A gold dot means a key's worth trying again.