Game Review: Word Search

The developer of many great free games including Solitaire, FreeCell, and Hearts, released yet another hit!

Overall Score: 5/5

Anyone who likes playing word search games will LOVE this game! It’s just like you’re back in elementary school again; find the words hidden among the sea of letters! The variety of words and perfect controls in combination with the elegant presentation makes this game fabulous.

Gameplay: 5/5

This recreates the word searching game perfectly, and goes a step further with online high scores! The controls are perfect and accurate. Once you spot a word, you can tap the first letter of the word and start dragging in the direction it goes (horizontal, vertical, or diagonal). Thankfully, you don’t have to be very precise when selecting words, since the controls work really well. There are a ton of different word categories (94 total) so that you can play with words which relate to you. There’s also three different difficulties to play and high scores to compete for. The high score rankings consider how fast you complete the search and the difficulty of the game, and they are submitted to local and online scoreboards. There’s a weekly and an overall online high score tracker that you can compete in. Therefore, the great controls paired with the incredible amount of categories and online scoreboards make this game fabulous!

Presentation: 5/5

The visuals are, like his other games, very elegant. The simple yet fluid transition between the menu screen and the game board is perfect. The visual design of the game looks classy and well styled. The sound effects can be turned on in the main menu, which give you some simple sound effects for when you get a word correct. There’s no background music, which is alright for simple games like this. The load and resume speeds for the game are pretty fast.

Lasting Value: 4/5

Thanks to the insane amount of word categories and the online high score system, this game could last forever. However, it is limited to your own boredom. It could see some improvement if it included some different game modes like a “Time Trial” mode where you have to solve a word search in a certain amount of time. Or, it could even include a puzzle creator, so you could submit your own words and create a puzzle for you or a friend to complete. So the lasting value is good, but it could be a bit better!

Title: Word Search
Price: FREE
Publisher: Jake Poznanski