Word Puzzles by POWGI review for Nintendo Switch

Platform: Nintendo Switch
Also On: 3DS, Wii U
Publisher: Lightwood Games
Developer: Lightwood Games
Medium: Digital
Players: 1
Online: No
ESRB: E

As I?ve written many times before, ever since I was little and my mom got me hooked on Scrabble, I?ve had a thing for word games. Consequently, any time a game has come along that promises it?ll allow me to flex my vocabulary, I?ve been eager to play it — for better and for worse.

In other words, I?m not even going to pretend that my experience with Word Puzzles by POWGI will even remotely resemble how most other people will see it.

After all, where most people will likely see something that falls under the general category of edutainment, in my eyes I see my next gaming addiction, the kind of thing that?s going to worm its way into my brain and leave me seeing word patterns every time I close my eyes. This is, of course, an atypical way of looking at the game.

Not that I care — not when there are so many words to be made. For me, the only real questions are things like: do I blow through all the word mazes (where you follow letters through a maze without any lines, forming words as you go until there are no letters left without a word), or balance my time equally between that and the circles, where you?re given a Venn diagram of three clusters of letters and you have to figure out the overlapping letter for all three clusters? Or do I forgo both in favour of flowers, in which you have 12 pairs of letters and you have to figure out how to arrange them around two common middle letters, along with a bit of one word, the word search where you have to find (you guessed it) one word amongst a grid comprised only of the letters in that word? Or maybe I just focus my attention crossovers, in which you first solve two-word crossword puzzles, and then use one common letter from each to spell another word? With hundreds and hundreds of puzzles available in each, the possibilities seem almost endless.

And that?s without even getting into the fact that the game offers DLC, which expands the line-up of available puzzles even more. As someone who?s resolutely against DLC…well, I have to admit it?s enough to make me think about reconsidering that position, in a way that few other games ever have. I mean, I think it?s bad, but at the same time: more word puzzles.

Again, I know my experience with Word Puzzles by POWGI is kind of atypical. Most people, I expect, will not be as addicted as I am. But if you do enjoy a good game of Scrabble, this just might be your game of the year.

Lightwood Games provided us with a Word Puzzles by POWGI Switch code for review purposes.

Grade: A