Sidewords

AN ORIGINAL AND ARRESTING WORD GAME. $4.49 | milkbag.me

SIDEWORDS INVOLVES A blank grid, along the top- and left-hand edges of which are two words. You must select at least one letter from each, to make a word of three or more letters. Every letter you prod blasts a laser-like line across the grid. Squares where these lines collide are filled with your word when you confirm it by prodding a big tick. There’s crossover with anagram games, then, but

Sidewords is also a logic puzzle. Completed word blocks cannot overlap, but can be removed with a tap. Often, you’ll sadly remove big words you felt like a genius on finding — until you realise no words exist to fill the leftover spaces and thereby complete the puzzle. As the grids grow, so does the challenge, but Sidewords smartly unlocks most of its puzzles from the get-go, and remembers their status should you temporarily give up. There’s even a ‘bonus’ minigame, Quads, a sliding tile affair a little like Sirvo’s Threes!, and which itself would be worth a few bucks. If there’s any criticism to level, it’s that Sidewords lacks a compelling edge — that thing that makes you want to play deep into the night. That said, it’s an ideal game for filling spare moments, picking away at a puzzle you’re convinced you can crack, if you can find the right words. Sidewords is a rarity — a word game that does something new and interesting.