# Knotwords — user reviews > 284 indexed App Store user reviews of Knotwords by Zach Gage, rated 4.80/5 from 8,097 ratings. - Source: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/knotwords/id1598756238/reviews - App overview in markdown: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/knotwords/id1598756238.md - Rating breakdown: 5★ 6,929 · 4★ 843 · 3★ 166 · 2★ 77 · 1★ 82 ## What do users think of Knotwords? Overall sentiment: positive **Pros** - 🚀 Great game - 👍 Fun and challenging - 🚀 Simple but engaging - 👍 Unique concept - 👍 Addictive - 👍 Intuitive - 👍 Aesthetically pleasing **Cons** - 🐛 Crashes and freezes - 🐛 Buggy cursor/input issues - 🐛 Slow performance - 🐛 Questionable word choices - 🔋 Battery drain - 🔒 Lack of cloud sync **Commonly reported bugs** - Puzzles with missing/incorrect squares - Incorrect words being accepted - Puzzles not properly credited as completed - Hints not matching the correct answers **Most requested features** - Ability to turn off haptic feedback - Improved cursor/input behavior - Cloud sync across devices - Difficulty settings - Ability to see definitions of completed words - Restart button for puzzles - Customizable themes - Daily leaderboards - Ability to disable hints once used ## Newest reviews (16 of 284) ### 3/5 — Accepted Words…? *2026-06-20, version 1.0.23* Great app, I play this along with the NYT games, but on one of the days I put in the word ‘SLAVE’ and it came up in pink - meaning it’s not a word. Is this a mistake or is it some sort of woke narrative where they don’t accept words they don’t like even though they are in the English language. I assume it’s an error. ### 4/5 — Clever idea… *2026-05-10, version 1.0.23* …would you consider an English version? ### 4/5 — Fun but a bit pricey *2026-04-13, version 1.0.23* Would rate 5 stars if more affordable ### 5/5 — My favorite puzzle game *2026-03-30, version 1.0.23* Knotwords is the best puzzle game I know. One aspect I’ll call out is that even the “easy” puzzles are satisfying. A Monday daily may be solvable in less than 30 seconds, but it still calls for some thought and therefore doesn’t feel brainless or automatic, the way a Monday sudoku puzzle does. ### 2/5 — Uses Wiktionary, but Ignores It? *2026-03-29, version 1.0.23* On any given day it will sometimes pull out a word that raises my eyebrow as it’s a stretch, but today it said “elide” means to break apart or destroy which isn’t true at all, claimed it came from Wiktionary, and when I checked that wasn’t there at all? It’s like it’s hallucinating answers now. I’ve gotten nearly a 200 daily streak and it’s just disappointing that I like this game so much but they’re clearly using something generative under the covers that has no actual guidelines if it can just make up hints. ### 5/5 — I rarely leave reviews *2026-03-15, version 1.0.23* I’m rarely impressed with any app enough to write a review. This app though is worth the pro version, the puzzles are a perfect mix of skill levels, I find myself doing just “one more” - it’s truly addictive in the right way. It’s a minimal app interface so it’s not distracting, no ad bombing or inaccessible colours/font. the only things I’d request in future updates is a more intuitive erase tool for wrong words or a more intuitive next letter/box action if possible. You can use your mobile keyboard to move the cursor to the input box, it’s sufficient though it could be improved on. I also find the move gesture on my iPhone a little hard sometimes, it’ll more often select the boxes rather than whole the puzzle moving over. I have to zoom in and out because my eyes aren’t that great, so I’m moving the screen in all directions quite often. ### 5/5 — Fun *2026-03-09, version 1.0.23* Fun and funny! ### 4/5 — Solid *2026-03-03, version 1.0.23* I enjoy the daily mini puzzles and can usually breeze through in 1-3 minutes a day. I would like a stats screen showing how many unique words have been found throughout playing. -1 star for paywall locking if you miss a single day in your streak. ### 4/5 — Start March hurrah *2026-03-01, version 1.0.23* “Barcode” not on the menu to this day. Guide more to say. ### 3/5 — Word choice? *2026-01-16, version 1.0.23* I’ve been playing the free daily mini for a very long time. I’ve been continually amazed at how often they choose to use “snot”. Really? Are we middle school kids? I’ll keep playing, but it’s become a daily joke between me and my spouse. ### 5/5 — Watch for addiction tendencies. *2026-01-04, version 1.0.23* A great game for word lovers. Once you’ve cracked the easy levels there are harder games to progress too. Warning: can be addictive! ### 5/5 — Fun *2025-12-21, version 1.0.23* Very fun game ### 3/5 — Great, but… *2025-12-18, version 1.0.23* Update: I still hate the cursor jumping into already occupied squares and overwriting letters, but today (12/18) trying “lended” and getting told that’s not a word, but they’ll often put antiquated words in? Come on. I’m on a nearly 6 month streak, the thing I despise so much that keeps it from five stars is the cursor. I don’t know why it just won’t skip over letters already input and overwrites a letter already entered. That and, for example, I’m solving a word going down and go into a zone of letters and it decides to start solving the word across instead of the “Down” word I’m solving. Last thing, the clues are absolutely awful, when you’re used to the NYT crossword caliber of clues, these are just not good. Great puzzle app though. ### 5/5 — My favorite mobile game *2025-12-15, version 1.0.23* This game has been a constant companion for me and I can’t recommend it enough ### 5/5 — Fun Game *2025-11-01* very fun game, sometimes if you do a lot of puzzles in a row the words might get a bit repetitive but other than a good game ### 3/5 — This game is what is advertised but… *2025-10-09, version 1.0.23* This game should not be advertised as free. Gave it 3 stars because when you first start, you get to play the first 10 games and then you have to buy the annual or perpetual plan. It doesn’t have any ads, which is great. But the limitation of not even being able to play beyond the 2 daily puzzles is annoying. Especially in my case where I love games like this. I think the devs should consider a free version with ads and have the paid version for those who can’t stand ads. ## Most critical reviews (10 lowest-rated) ### 1/5 — Fun game! *2026-08-09, version 1.0.23* I love the game but wish the logic for where it thinks I want to put in the next letter made more sense to me. ### 1/5 — Nice Idea, Unreliable and Perplexing *2026-08-06, version 1.0.23* I’ve been using this game for some years, and I find the concept to be original. No clues provided, the user has to figure out words that fit. That’s about where the good ends. The game doesn’t appear to have been updated for years, the interface lags, sometimes doesn’t respond, and rarely, if ever syncs over ICloud. The monthly puzzle section contains regurgitated themes and puzzles literally taken from the last several months. The app uses words that don’t exist in any dictionary, which is untenable for a word based game. It’s one of the most poorly implemented games I’ve ever seen, which is a shame because the concept is great. ### 1/5 — Abandon Ship *2026-05-31, version 1.0.23* Another one bites the dust, everything just got paywalled, don’t bother. ### 1/5 — Ehhhhhh *2025-12-07, version 1.0.23* It’s really not that great. Even if I use a descrambler I still don’t get a solution. Perhaps Mr. Zach will consider incorporating positive feedback. For example use a specific color for words that were correctly solved and placed in to the slots permanently. That way we know when we’re getting closer to a solution, it’s really not that much fun and I don’t have a whole lot of time to spend on it. And why not a resign option and display the solution. Again I don’t have a whole lot of time to spend on this puzzle. Oh I’d be willing to purchase letters or words. Are your programming skills up to it? ### 1/5 — Lost my streak *2025-05-11, version 1.0.23* I do not know what happened. I had a streak of 945 days, went in today to play and it is all gone and says I have not played it in 3 days. I was very diligent about playing it caused I wanted to get to 1000. I have no idea what could have happened. So sad I will probably delete it. ### 1/5 — Annoying pop ups *2025-01-01, version 1.0.23* Asked for a review 8 times in a minute so here it is ### 1/5 — Some of the words in the puzzle aren’t correct *2024-07-29, version 1.0.23* For example: July tricky puzzle #16: Exactest is not a word. July tricky puzzle #30: inhering is not a word July 9: daily classic: Ripes is not a word. July 9 Daily twist: wests is not a word July 11: daily classic - Severer is not a word. July 14: daily classic - Gimleted is not a word. July 20 twist - humaner is not a word. July 25 twist - Phobics is not a word. July 29 twist - meres is not a word. And it’s not the plural of the word marsh. ### 1/5 — It’s not worth it unless you buy the subcription *2024-07-04, version 1.0.23* There’s a section for the puzzles for then entire month and without buying the subscript you only get 10 of the 30/31 puzzles for the entire month. They also have a daily classic and mini puzzle but some days you have to skip unless you pay. So once the 10 puzzles for the month is done you may get 0-2 puzzles to play a day. I deleted the app after learning this. ### 1/5 — June 23 Puzzle *2024-06-23, version 1.0.23* SUCKED. It’s one thing to try to stretch people’s minds; it’s another to show off your own brilliance by including words that NO ONE USES in WAYS NO ONE USES THEM. ### 1/5 — overengineered to be tricksy *2024-06-01, version 1.0.23* They did some updates on freezing issues. it's still slow. it should be better than this *** Now it's crashing on iPadOS 17.3.1. IT'S STILL SLOW. WHAT ARE THE SLOW MENUS DOING - MINING BITCOIN IN THE BACKGROUND? WHY IS THE MENU INTERFACE STILL SO SLOW? What did you do, write it in Electron? the app is laggy and slow and freezes on an ipad air 3, especially the menus. it's a simple puzzle game. what is it doing? **** Dark mode at night is a joke. flash teal, then back to black? CHODE and REGES are in? AX and SEXY are disallowed? really? UPDATE 3: TRUES ? UPDATE 2: SOMEWHATS ? ISMS ? really? dictionary and plurals are broken. UPDATE: surprisingly, I've stuck with it, though the American language grates. Today, the daily classic and mini had FLIED and AMIDS as words. FLIED is, I think, some baseball specific term, but AMIDS? really? More attention needs to be paid to word choice, selecting from words common across multiple variants of English. Daily wordle player here. I tried to like this, got through the ten free puzzles easily sans hints, did a bunch of dailies. but this won't have staying power in its ever more convoluted puzzles. and the slow grid animation landscape behind the playing area makes me queasy. [option now added to disable it, but it defaults to on] Rather like Zach Gage's ReallyBadChess, this is smart, fairly polished ,well executed for what it is... but somehow empty and ultimately unfulfilling. Oh, and I have to subscribe to see previous puzzles I've completed? that's nickel and diming, and leaves a bad taste in my mouth. ## Most praised reviews (10 highest-rated) ### 5/5 — Fun *2026-07-12, version 1.0.23* Fun game ### 5/5 — Addicting *2026-07-11, version 1.0.23* This is one of my favorite apps on my phone. The puzzles grow more challenging throughout the week. There is no advertising nagging. Just fun. ### 5/5 — Challenging puzzle *2026-07-07, version 1.0.23* I love that alternate solutions are allowed. Appreciate the hints. Look forward to Classic growing each day. I’m always excited for Sundays ### 5/5 — Sehr Gelungen *2026-07-01* Für alle, die gerne knifflige Kreuzworträtsel spielen ist Knotwords eine erfrischende Variante. Die kostenlose Variante bietet jeden Tag zwei neue Rätsel, genau die richtige Dosis um einerseits nicht zu viel Zeit zu versenken und sich andererseits täglich ein wenig herauszufordern. ### 5/5 — Just let us play *2026-06-25, version 1.0.23* Pop ups after every game asking for a rating, whether you give 5 stars or 1 star. ### 5/5 — Good *2026-05-13, version 1.0.23* Very good ### 5/5 — compelling, engrossing *2026-05-06, version 1.0.23* Any spare few minutes, I now get tied up in Knotwords.

I’ve been a writer and a cryptic crossword enthusiast for 50 years. I’m good at anagrams, which is the main skill you need for Knotwords. Still it’s really challenging me. It’s so cunning.

The creators have already produced a number of variations too: all worthwhile. It’s unlikely to get boring.

Of course, like all www word games, you’re at the mercy of the installed lexicon. I know words it doesn’t include, and it includes some proper nouns and such that I’d never have expected. And inevitably all the spellings are American. Those things you just have to learn to cope with.

I’m learning as fast as I can. 😁 ### 5/5 — 1400 day streak *2026-04-21, version 1.0.23* Fun game for daily mental workout ### 5/5 — Stories *2026-04-13, version 1.0.23* This game is fascinating in the sense that for every puzzle solved, there’s some hidden story revealed within the combination of words found together. It’s a nice reward for solving each puzzle. ### 5/5 — Great game but… *2026-04-03, version 1.0.23* Great game for all the reasons given elsewhere. Great free tier, fun, etc. Lately though after *every* round it prompts for a review. No idea if it’s a but or what. Very annoying. I don’t like using reviews to communicate with devs but this is annoying enough to do this. --- *Data collected daily from the US App Store and indexed by [AppsHunter](https://appshunter.io/). User reviews are verbatim App Store reviews. Ratings, prices and chart positions refresh continuously; this snapshot is from 2026-09-01.*