Repetitive 2024
Good, not great
Response from developer
Those are two great suggestions! Believe it or not, you're the first to suggest them. Optionally adding spaces between multi-word clues sounds fun, but guessing the authors before seeing their names would *definitely* be fun—thanks!
Thank you for the simple app!
Good, not great
Response from developer
Those are two great suggestions! Believe it or not, you're the first to suggest them. Optionally adding spaces between multi-word clues sounds fun, but guessing the authors before seeing their names would *definitely* be fun—thanks!
Old mate
Wish there were more
Response from developer
Glad you're enjoying the game. Shorter quotes are sometimes harder to make into puzzles, so perhaps we end up making them too hard. We'll keep this in mind when making future (shorter) puzzles, thank you!
Fast Fun
Will there be Book10?
Response from developer
Just released four new books this week!
Suggestion
Custom keyboard is great, could use auto light/dark mode switch
Author John is responsive and polite.
Clues are a good mix of easy and hard.
Interface is a joy to use: both modern and easy to tap.
Sound effects are minimal and delightful - never getting old.
Happily paid the $9.99 for the additional 192 puzzles. What a great game.
Only nitpick: could use automatic dark/light mode switcher.
More?
Response from developer
Yes, expect more books soon. It's great to hear you've enjoyed them so far, thanks!
Love this!
Extremely Addictive!
Absorbing and clever.
Very enjoyable!
More please!
Nice casual time killer
The user experience is good. I like how easy it is to jump back and forth between puzzles. I don’t lose track of where I am like I do in other word games of this type. It just feels good to play. One temporary announce was having to press delete a bunch of times to clear a word but I see now that you can long press for that.
The puzzles themselves are decent though there are some differences if you’re used to the Dell/Penny Press puzzles. They have two letter clues and they’re often easier than they could be (e.g. the state abbreviations). Having two letters from the same clue in the same word in the quote is not allowed in the magazines. The first letters of the clues don’t spell the author and source. And it took a bit for me to realize clues like “helps land airplanes” refer to a person and not an action.
I suspect much of this is dictated by the smaller phone screens which would be much harder to manage for the length of puzzle you normally see. Either way, it’s a fun casual game and I’ll be purchasing the puzzle packs shortly.
Response from developer
Thanks for taking the time to leave such a nice review. You are right that many decisions were dictated by the smaller screens. Something fun on larger screens/puzzles turned out to be sometimes less fun on a smaller screen, so we tried to strike a decent balance. Hearing that you've enjoyed the puzzles is gratifying because it means at least some of the design decisions worked.
Apps are where authentic crostics go to die
With each new crostics app, I’m seeing the original puzzle lose more and more of its form and functions. If I wasn’t still attached to the Thomas Middleton crostics from back in the day, I’d probably be giving more stars.
With this app, I’d like to see the clues and quote grid on the same page (perhaps the letters don’t need to be as large as they are). I don’t want to be told explicitly and immediately when I’ve answered a clue correctly—that’s cheating. (Maybe that could be a settable feature.) I suppose I should give up on the feature where the first letter of each clue spells the author’s name and possibly the name of the quote. I wouldn’t mind some more scholarly-type clues referencing for instance history, literature, etc. Including some more challenging puzzles might be nice.
Note to the developer: this is my second edit. Another comment: letters from the quote should be distributed randomly among the clues. You are winding up with many letters in a quote word all being in the same clue word. When creating the puzzle, you’re filling in the clues more or less “in order”. It undermines the ability to go back and forth and have one mode, quote or clues, inform & disambiguate the other. It defeats the underlying elegance of crostics versus straight crossword puzzles. This is especially problematic when the words involved are short. Spoiler Alert: Have a look at Book 4, Puzzle 11, the last 3-letter word in the quote.
There are some very nice things here. The visual design is clean and handsome, the sound effects are perfect, and the navigation is functional and intuitive. When entering letters, I found the back-and-forth between grid and clues fluid and easy. I like the way the app is smart about where the focus is put when entering and deleting letters, although it would be nice to be able to delete all the letters in a clue answer with one action. I like the confetti animation at the end :)
Little thing: I’d like to be able to go back and look at a solved puzzle. As it stands now, I can only view the puzzle again after the solution has been cleared.
I’m on an iPad.
Response from developer
[Additional response about letter distribution below.] I enjoyed reading your review and appreciate the time and care you devoted to it. It was also pleasing to hear that you've enjoyed aspects of the app; thank you for the kind words. I struggled to retain the classic puzzle format but, despite my many different design approaches, fitting everything onscreen while 1) keeping the gameplay enjoyable and clear 2) on both iPhone and iPad 3) in both portrait and landscape orientations proved to be beyond my design skills. Perhaps others may solve it yet, but it stumped me. I found that certain elements of the classic format depend heavily on everything being visible simultaneously as your eye moves among quote and author and clues/answers, and having concluded that everything wouldn't fit onscreen, I scrutinized those elements closely. Spelling the author's name from the clues' first letters, for instance, turned out to be less satisfying when scrolling up and down through a list of answers trying to make sense of things. It's certainly technically possible, and indeed early on the app supported it, but the fuss of scrolling ultimately drained away much of the added fun of seeing the author's name emerge organically from the answers, and I dropped the feature to keep things light enough to fit into the mobile world--a cruel design taskmaster. I intend to have more scholarly-type clues in version 2.0 (currently unscheduled). Your three feature suggestions, all excellent and reasonable, are now on my list of improvements, thank you: • add setting for immediately and automatically declaring an answer correct • Allow deletion of all letters in a clue answer with one tap • Allow viewing of solved puzzles [Added] Regarding letter distribution, I checked to confirm and, yes, the letters are already being randomly distributed when the puzzles are created, but it does look like it could be improved further. I believe that the issue you cite appears most frequently in shorter quotes broken into fewer words. While checking I discovered a few ways I can improve the randomization still further and have noted these in my improvements list as well, so thank you for that!
Fun, but...
Response from developer
We debated whether or not to say "(2 words)" and, in the end, thought briefer was better on the small phone screens. But perhaps we should offer it as an option? Glad to hear you're enjoying the game!
