Mobile games are, to me, mostly absolute bobbins. I have no desire to engage in tap-and-wait non-gameplay, I don't want to play rigged puzzles designed to get me to cough up money for "boosts" and I absolutely want nothing to do with fucking gacha. On top of that, I have zero desire to play "console-quality" experiences on my phone because touchscreens fucking suck for games like that.
As a result of all of the above, there are very few mobile games that I will give any time to whatsoever. One of them is Take It Easy by Ravensburger, an adaptation of a tabletop game that I think works a lot better as a video game because you don't have to do any of the maths or checking for valid moves yourself, but that's not what we're here to talk about. (I talked about it at length here, and I am always pleased to note that it is still supported after originally being released in 2015, which is practically caveman days in smartphone gaming terms.)
No, today I want to talk about Knotwords, a simply presented game by Zach Gage and Jack Schlesinger. This is a game that is, for me, an ideal mobile game. It has short play sessions, it's easy to control using nothing more than the touchscreen, and perhaps most importantly, it's not trying to shake you down for your life savings or make you endure ads every ten minutes. No, in fact the game is ad-free, and simply monetised via either an optional subscription (£4.59 a year) or a one-off purchase (£11.49).
The free version of Knotwords allows you to play the daily "Mini" and "Classic" challenges (the difference simply being the size and complexity of the complete puzzle) as well as a monthly "Puzzlebook" (though I would add that at the time of writing, the Android version of the game has broken this feature, asking for an update that doesn't exist). Paying up allows you to access a mode called "Twist" (which I don't know anything about because I haven't paid) as well as the archived previous Puzzlebooks, plus a couple of extra benefits such as additional hints, if you need them.
So what is Knotwords? It's a word puzzle based on crosswords, but also drawing influences from sudoku (or perhaps more accurately, kenken) and anagram puzzles. You're presented with a blank crossword divided into areas, with each region telling you which letters go in it, but not the order those letters should be in. Your job is to untangle these "knots" and solve the crossword using valid words, ideally as quickly as possible. That's it — at least for the Mini and Classic puzzles; I don't know if Twist is any different.
The pleasant thing about Knotwords is that it's simple to understand, but it gets you thinking. Supposedly the puzzles are easy on Mondays and ramp up in difficulty as each week approaches Sunday, but I haven't been playing the game regularly enough to notice the differences as yet.
I have been playing the game, though, which is more than I can say for pretty much any other mobile game released since… well, 2015, when Take It Easy came out. I appreciate a game that makes good use of the platform it's on, doesn't constantly bug me to pay up, and which is simply a fun little challenge. A Knotwords puzzle is the sort of thing you can do on the toilet or before going to bed; it doesn't demand a lot of commitment, but it does get your brain working in a way that doomscrolling the shitty end of the Internet absolutely does not.
The only thing I don't like about it is its use of "streaks", a la Wordle, because that's a shitty way to engage players and I dislike it intensely. But it's also easily ignored, so I'm not particularly mad about it. I do feel sorry for the people online who seem to have a genuine addiction to anything with a "streak" involved, though, including this. You should be playing things like Knotwords because you want to, not to Make Number Go Up.
Anyway, Knotwords is A Good, and I'm happy to have randomly stumbled across it the other day. If you're burnt out on Wordle (or just feel weird giving the New York Times any of your time and/or attention, regardless of reasons) then I highly recommend giving it a shot.
Want to read my thoughts on various video games, visual novels and other popular culture things? Stop by MoeGamer.net, my site for all things fun where I am generally a lot more cheerful. And if you fancy watching some vids on classic games, drop by my YouTube channel.
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