Word Puzzle for Fun – App Review

Word Puzzles for Fun, by Apps Genie Limited, is an app that currently focuses entirely on one of the more common word games that many of us are familiar with. The often-vexing, but particularly basic “word search” is the main event here. There are approximately 40 of them to choose from at present, and they come in a variety of themes, including wildlife, cars, and even words for different languages. The puzzles keep track of the time it takes for you to complete them, and there is even a “Quests” system that tracks your progress, including the time it takes for you to finish certain puzzles. There are only 3 at present, and they are reminiscent of the “achievement” system that other games have become accustomed to using.

The app itself functions wonderfully. The menus are smooth and responsive, the settings are standard, and the overall interface keeps it simple and intuitive. The gameplay is easy to get into, and selecting words with the touch screen is both accurate and has a good feel to it.

The game itself feels good. It’s exactly the simplicity you’d expect out of a word search game, and the game itself is well enough designed to provide you with a challenge (in the form of the timer), or just to allow you to leisurely finish the puzzles as you go. Each category seems to have multiple randomized words associated with them, so repeating a puzzle will provide you with a totally different solution each time. This is probably the apps best function, as both the words and the layout of the puzzle change each time you try it. In other words, it has lasting appeal, as far as word searches go.

It’s worth noting that some of the legends also include acronyms, or more than one word fused together. Just a couple of examples from my time with the app would be words like “hdmiport”, or “cd”. The latter was particularly frustrating, because given the nature of a random letter generator, there ended up being more than 1 “cd” in the puzzle, 1 of which I could not select as a viable solution.

The in-app purchasing system is confusing, and at present, does not seem to add anything to the game. Perhaps this is a system meant to be built on in future releases, but as it stands, I don’t believe it does anything. If it does, that section could certainly provide more guidance to the user.

In general, this seems like high praise for a game of word searches, but the truth is, outside of the potentially misleading title, and the confusing in-app purchasing system (that is by no means required to play the game), the app hits the mark for the most basic of games.

All this being said, the app itself does have the feeling of being particularly unfinished, especially given that the name of the app is suggestive of more than one type of puzzle. I really was hoping for a few more games to play. And although I cannot say anything about what any of the future plans for this app are, at present, it hits the mark for what it should be named: a word search game. However, given the lack of diversity in word games here, I can really only suggest this app for a younger audience, or for those who are looking for something a little more mindless to do while waiting for the bus, or while out on break. Its simplicity is both its greatest asset, and its greatest downfall.

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