The Nintendo published crosswords game...
Basically it's crosswords, then. You either know how to play them or you don't!
First off, there are four save files, which is good. Select one and you can choose between the three games you want to play, crosswords, wordsearches, or anagrams.
The controls in crosswords are great. Touch any square and it'll tell you the clues across and down for that square. Touch it again and it'll zoom in, allowing you to write the letter. Once you've input a letter it'll move onto the next box across or down, depending on which you've got selected. The handwriting recognition is good for the most part but I'm having trouble with a few. I started in upper case and it kept reading my 'I' as an 'L' as it needs the 'I' to be either dotted or lined at the top and bottom to recognise it. So I tried lower case which read my 'a' as a 'z.' I'll probably stick to upper case, it'll be easier to write 'I' properly than change the way I write 'a' entirely!
Aside from that all is well. The clues are good (though I've only done the first few easy puzzles and one on medium) and mostly clear, though some are a little vague, of course filling in the letters of other words mostly solves any isues. The first puzzles are really boring though, only 4x4 in size and there's a lot of them that size too! They take little over a minute to solve and then you're given a rank. The highest is A+ I think but in easy the highest you can get is A, as you can't turn the assist off. This is hugely annoying. If you write the wrong letter it turns red, and makes you feel like you've cheated, even if it's just the handwriting recognition going wrong! This can be turned off in medium and above though, and you get an extra + rank for doing so. There are four difficulties (the last two unlocked later), I expect to go nowhere near the fourth at all...
Should you get stuck, there's a hint system. Each puzzle gives you a certain number of points to spend on hints. You can use them to buy an additional clue (1pt), a letter (3pts), or a complete word (5pts). These carry a time penalty though and it seems to not award you any rank if you use one, that or maybe I was just too slow for that puzzle to warrant a rank!
Wordsearches play perfectly well, if a little boringly. They're wordsearches, after all. Just drag the stylus from one end of a word to t'other, easy peasy. Difficulty levels are present, but I didn't play them much so I'm not sure how big they get
Anagrams are randomly generated. You select whether you want short, medium, or long, and it gives you a series of letters and you make as many words as you can. The length refers to the length of words you can create. In 'short' you only have to make words of three and four letters, etc. A list is filled in in alphabetical order as you go along so you can work out towards the end what words you might be missing. It's more interesting than the worsearches but still not much more than a distraction from the crosswords.
Basically it's crosswords, then. You either know how to play them or you don't!
First off, there are four save files, which is good. Select one and you can choose between the three games you want to play, crosswords, wordsearches, or anagrams.
The controls in crosswords are great. Touch any square and it'll tell you the clues across and down for that square. Touch it again and it'll zoom in, allowing you to write the letter. Once you've input a letter it'll move onto the next box across or down, depending on which you've got selected. The handwriting recognition is good for the most part but I'm having trouble with a few. I started in upper case and it kept reading my 'I' as an 'L' as it needs the 'I' to be either dotted or lined at the top and bottom to recognise it. So I tried lower case which read my 'a' as a 'z.' I'll probably stick to upper case, it'll be easier to write 'I' properly than change the way I write 'a' entirely!
Aside from that all is well. The clues are good (though I've only done the first few easy puzzles and one on medium) and mostly clear, though some are a little vague, of course filling in the letters of other words mostly solves any isues. The first puzzles are really boring though, only 4x4 in size and there's a lot of them that size too! They take little over a minute to solve and then you're given a rank. The highest is A+ I think but in easy the highest you can get is A, as you can't turn the assist off. This is hugely annoying. If you write the wrong letter it turns red, and makes you feel like you've cheated, even if it's just the handwriting recognition going wrong! This can be turned off in medium and above though, and you get an extra + rank for doing so. There are four difficulties (the last two unlocked later), I expect to go nowhere near the fourth at all...
Should you get stuck, there's a hint system. Each puzzle gives you a certain number of points to spend on hints. You can use them to buy an additional clue (1pt), a letter (3pts), or a complete word (5pts). These carry a time penalty though and it seems to not award you any rank if you use one, that or maybe I was just too slow for that puzzle to warrant a rank!
Wordsearches play perfectly well, if a little boringly. They're wordsearches, after all. Just drag the stylus from one end of a word to t'other, easy peasy. Difficulty levels are present, but I didn't play them much so I'm not sure how big they get
Anagrams are randomly generated. You select whether you want short, medium, or long, and it gives you a series of letters and you make as many words as you can. The length refers to the length of words you can create. In 'short' you only have to make words of three and four letters, etc. A list is filled in in alphabetical order as you go along so you can work out towards the end what words you might be missing. It's more interesting than the worsearches but still not much more than a distraction from the crosswords.
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