Even though I’m pretty decent at Scrabble, I make for a very poor crossword puzzle player. I can’t recall how many times I attempted to solve crosswords in the newspaper and on the DS (yup, with the New York Times Crossword Puzzle game), I’ve always failed miserably. And the fact that Tanu Kush’s latest game for the iPhone, Word Triangle, plays like a really mean crossword puzzle doesn’t really help things with me :).
But on the other hand, I came away suitably impressed. Each puzzle in the game features 7 clues and 7 words starting with 1 letter on top to a 7 letter word at the bottom. In other words, they are stacked like a pyramid, each of them varying in length and each will have the same letter revealed. Players guess the words based on the hints given and there’s no time limit.
This game is really tough (what ends with e and is a herbacrous plant?) and I can understand why the developers place a Solve button right at the top. Clicking it will solve the first incomplete word from the top. Even though there’s no penalty using this, there’s a certain amount of satisfaction to be gained from not using the Solve button. Other than the tough gameplay, I really love the black and white minimalist theme that the game adopted.
One thing that I completely missed out during the first draft of this review was this: Players have hints other than clues. Every word has all letters from previous word and at each level he has to add 1 letter and reshuffle. This helps a lot in finding tough words. In the screen shot above, the 6th word STUPOR contains all letter of previous word SPOUT and one new letter R.
If you are looking for a challenge, Word Triangle has it in spades. Best of all, you can try it out before you buy. The game is available for free on the iTunes App Store and comes with 15 levels. The full version of the game is available via in-app purchase of USD 1.99. Nine Over Ten 9/10 rates Word Triangle at a 4 out of 5. Check it out now.
Word Triangle is available on the iTunes App Store: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/word-triangle/id453172645?mt=8
