Topics: Hidden Word Search!

I discovered this puzzle on the New York Times, and just had to have more. I found this in the App Store, and I love it. The interface is a little bit flaky, as in you touch a letter and it doesn’t quite connect and you have to try again, but, all in all it works decently well. I’ve binged on this game enough that I now know there are just over 100 puzzles, and when you get to the end of them, it cycles back to the first puzzle and you’re redoing puzzles. I paid $6.99 to get rid of the ads, and 6 cents a puzzle isn’t a bad price. However, I really wish they would add a lot more puzzles. My fear is that this is the game the New York Times bought (like they bought Wordle) and now the only new puzzles will be on the New York Times and doles out at the rate of one per day. Anyway, if you want to play these 100 puzzles, they are fun to do, reasonably challenging and very satisfying.

I was absolutely loving this game, but then started noticing that it breaks what I thought were the rules that letters could not be used twice. This makes the game incredibly confusing to a point where I am at the final word for level 70 and have not been able to figure it out. In addition they don’t allow a clue for the last word when it’s the special one so I’m truly stuck at a dead end with no help and no way to understand what rules to follow as letters would have to be reused to solve anything on this

I’ve never written a review for a game in all my years on Al Gore’s Internet, but I’m grateful for the ability to see reviews in the App Store because I thought I was losing my mind. Since this game launched, there have been CONSISTENT critical reviews, but the developer is not taking heed or implementing the feedback. The version history of weekly updates just indicate, “added more games!” Like others, I was excited to find this after playing NYT Strands - and at first, it was great! But by about the 10th level, the *hint* button stopped working properly and continues to only function sporadically. I briefly considered paying the $7 to get ads removed (in hopes of improved functionality), but decided to research and see what other reviewers said first - this issue is a common thread! Another reviewer mentioned the themes being intentionally misleading, and I agree (it almost seems as if the creator’s first language isn’t English). A separate reviewer recommended a *solve* option, or even the opportunity to return later and advance to the next puzzle when stuck, and either of these options would be a major improvement. Upon reaching a blatantly misspelled word in a theme on a level in the 30s, I’m deleting the whole thing. I’m admittedly a bit of a stickler. Maybe spelling “isn’t a big deal” to you. But this is a WORD game, for goodness’ sake!