Word Sudoku by POWGI review for PS Vita, PS4, Switch

Platform: PS Vita
Also On: Switch, PS4
Publisher: Lightwood Games
Developer: Lightwood Games
Medium: Digital
Players: 1
Online: No
ESRB: E

If I were to rank publishers in terms of how many hours I put into their games over the last year, I suspect my number one entry would be Lightwood Games, and it wouldn?t even be particularly close. Between Word Puzzles, Word Search, Pix-A-Pix, and Fill-A-Pix, I sank hours — if not days — into Lightwood Games? 2018 output, and in several cases I played everything those games had to offer across multiple systems.

Thanks to this…obsession, I?ve learned there are two categories of Lightwood Games, er, games. There are those I played to death because I genuinely loved them (see Pic-A-Pix and Word Puzzles), and those I became addicted to in part because I wanted the associated Platinum trophy for beating everything (Fill-A-Pix, I?m looking in your direction). While the sheer number of puzzles on offer here meant that, towards the end of my time with the game, part of me was almost dreading hearing the same music over and over again, I?m fairly certain I?d include this game in the former category rather than the latter.

After all, Word Sudoku hits one of my puzzling sweet spots. I?m a fan of sudoku, and a fan of word games; combine the two, and I don?t think I could look away even if I wanted to. And, of course, I don?t want to, since the idea of building puzzles around nine-letter words is something I?m 100% into.

What makes the game truly addictive is that it gets more difficult the further into it you get. While the easy puzzles are the kinds of things you can breeze through in a couple of minutes, by the time you reach the hardest ones you?ll look up at the end of a puzzle and discover that half an hour has passed you by.

Admittedly, this means that if you?re anything like me, Word Sudoku is a dangerous time sink. But, at the same time, it also means that it?ll provide you with hours and hours of fun — which is really the point of these kinds of games, isn?t it?

Lightwood Games provided us with a Word Sudoku PS4/Vita code for review purposes.

Grade: B