Puzzmo: Solve. Smile. Share.

I used to routinely use this app along with NYT, and actually preferred it over NYT most days. Over the past month, they have restricted most of the games to subscription only. I have paid the subscription when I could afford it, I loved the extra three game categories and bonus incentives from the sub. Now, you can’t even play Typeshift or sudoku without paying for a monthly subscription. It is disappointing to have to delete the app, but it is even more disappointing to open it. I’ve downloaded each feature game as the original solo app (by the same company), and made a folder for them. I’d much rather switch between the company’s other apps and daily puzzles than pay or restricted just because they’ve consolidated for you. Very disappointing when it’s clear that contributors and devs put so much time into it. I’m sure I’m not the only one deleting this app data this month. Can’t say I’ll miss it enough to ever come back, but it was good while it lasted.

While I love Puzzmo and the games that it offers, I find the chess game mode really frustrating. I understand the idea behind it, and I think it has potential. But as someone who doesn’t play chess very often, I can’t honestly say it’s fun to throw myself at the two daily chess games against a relatively unforgiving AI, especially when the game plays nothing like actual chess. It’s especially frustrating when you finish every other game, only to be left with chess to finish the page. Again, I don’t entirely dislike the concept of the game, but I think the game would seriously benefit from some sort of difficulty setting at the expense of points. I think being able to lower the elo of your opponent would make the game much more fun, and finishing a page would actually feel enjoyable, rather than a test of patience after finishing the rest of the games.

The puzzles are high quality and the app itself functions perfectly fine—as it should, considering it’s just a wrapper for the mobile site. It’s a bit disappointing that there are no app-specific UI adjustments (many buttons are too small, the quick access menu for the different games is all the way at the bottom of the page) and that the app is iOS-exclusive despite, again, just being the mobile site that you can already access on any device. Also, tapping the next arrow when playing the crossword should cycle through the clues in numerical order, not jump to the clue directly below when filling across or to the right when filling down.