# Retrogram — user reviews

> 62 indexed App Store user reviews of Retrogram by in Color, rated 4.40/5 from 320 ratings.

- Source: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/retrogram/id1537372328/reviews
- App overview in markdown: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/retrogram/id1537372328.md
- Rating breakdown: 5★ 239 · 4★ 41 · 3★ 8 · 2★ 8 · 1★ 24

## What do users think of Retrogram?

Overall sentiment: mixed

**Pros**

- 🎨 Retro aesthetic and clean interface design
- 👍 Simple and intuitive gameplay mechanics
- 🧠 Challenging and brain-stimulating puzzles
- 📚 Interesting word definitions and fun comments
- 🎮 Daily puzzle provides consistent engagement
- ✨ Responsive and helpful developer support
- 🔄 Regular updates and new features
- 📱 Smooth synchronization across devices
- 🎯 Clear word-finding feedback system

**Cons**

- 💰 Expensive subscription pricing ($30-$80)
- 🚫 Misleading free-to-play model with paywall
- 📖 Inconsistent and limited word dictionary
- 🔄 Words accepted one day but rejected another
- ⏰ Only one puzzle per day (limited content)
- ❌ Missing common words (orzo, aloud, galley)
- 🐛 Glitches and technical issues
- 🌍 American English only (no alternate spellings)
- ⚠️ Lack of transparency about subscription requirements

**Commonly reported bugs**

- Words marked as missed that were actually found
- Puzzle letters changing when spinning the wheel
- Apple Watch app no longer functioning
- Game progress deletion without explanation
- Inconsistent word acceptance across different puzzles
- Hint feature disappeared in recent updates
- Contact support only available through Apple Mail

**Most requested features**

- Access to previous/archived puzzles
- Multiple puzzles per day or puzzle difficulty levels
- Statistics tracking (completion rate, pangram frequency)
- Hint system that doesn't impact streak
- Word find rate percentages for context
- Immediate answer reveal after puzzle completion
- Cheaper one-time purchase option instead of subscription
- In-game dispute method for word validation
- Apple Watch functionality restoration
- Automatic daily prefix posting on social media

## Newest reviews (15 of 62)

### 4/5 — I Love This Game, BUT…..

*2026-05-04*

This game is almost perfect. The only problem I have with it is that if the word isn’t in the everyday lexicon then it isn’t recognized. Would it kill to use the Oxford dictionary? There are more than dime a dozen words.

**Developer response:** Thank you for your review, we really appreciate it. We use an intentional subset of the OED, for example, demonyms are not accepted, abbreviations, as are more obscure flora and fauna. Sometimes terms are deemed too technical or archaic. If you have a particular word you think should be included, send us an email and we'll consider it.

### 4/5 — Great game

*2025-12-20*

I’m really enjoying the app. The UI is simple and looks nice with the 70s theme. It would be good to have a hint feature that gives you a list of how many words start with 2-letter combinations and doesn’t impact your streak unlike the word reveal hint.

### 4/5 — Spelling

*2024-10-18*

I do enjoy this game, it can take a while to find all the words and sometimes I run out of steam… but it’s a good test for the brain. 
Obviously American English, but I can’t get past “Aluminum”. At least have both spellings, the US is literally the only country who dropped a vowel 😅 other than the occasional frustration, I’ll keep playing it because I’m a perfectionist 😂

**Developer response:** Thanks for playing! It's a tricky problem because each word we add makes the puzzle harder for everyone (increasing the total score required to get "Wizard"). We have added WORD NERD words as a solution to this, where the word gives you points, but doesn't increase the puzzle difficulty. We'll consider adding ALUMINIUM as a WORD NERD word for perfectionists like you.

### 3/5 — Does not compute many words

*2024-08-05*

I don’t know what dictionary or word list is being used, but many words found in any common dictionary, such as Mariam Webster,, result “does not compute“. A standard dictionary should be used. This is, after all,a game, utilizing word and spelling skills so to omit so many commonly used words is a significant flaw in the app. Otherwise the app is well designed and works well.

**Developer response:** Great suggestion! We will take it on board. When you say “finish the game” you mean reach Wizard level?

### 4/5 — unfound words arenot revealed until the following day

*2024-08-03*

I purchased the year subscription, but the unfound words are not revealed, until the following day —-not when I conclude the game. After I finish the game, I like to see what I missed and not wait an entire day. By the next day, I forgotten the whole game.

**Developer response:** Great suggestion! We will take it on board. When you say “finish the game” you mean reach Wizard level?

### 3/5 — A bit pricy

*2024-06-24*

Graphics are cool and the game is fun. I really like the retro look. You also learn some obscure words. And I’m happy to pay and support an indie developer, but $8 a month/$50 a year/$80 lifetime is a bit steep for just one daily puzzle and the occasional challenges.

**Developer response:** Our bonus puzzles are free for everyone, as are Sunday's puzzles. We will try to find some more ways to include free puzzles and paid puzzles, thanks for your great feedback!

### 2/5 — Doesn’t have daily games

*2024-05-15, version 2.1*

I deleted this “free” app after playing only two daily puzzles and a round of bonus puzzles. Lasted two days before I was only given the option of paying $30 or more to unlock more puzzles. It was a fun game while it lasted.

### 3/5 — Strange Glitches, Otherwise Fun

*2024-04-03*

Addictive fun for word lovers - I love beating the daily goal. There are a LOT of legit English words they don’t accept, especially past tenses and plurals, and quite a few I’ve used repeatedly in other word games. Today, though it’s glitching quite bizarrely, changing the letters every time you spin the wheel to rearrange them. Apparently you can only contact them through Apple mail, which I don’t use and don’t want, so I can’t ask them directly what is going on.

**Developer response:** Hi Zingiberk, thank you for leaving your review! Apologies for the glitchy puzzle two days ago, we’ve put in safeguards to prevent it from happening again. We will also make our contact details more visible in the game. For now, you should be able to use any email client to email us, please copy the address from the “to” field and paste it into the email client of your choice (retrogram.app@gmail.com)

### 2/5 — No daily puzzle

*2024-01-20, version 1.9.5*

I had maybe 3 days with a free puzzle, now for the past four days it tells me I have to subscribe to play the daily puzzle. It’s ridiculous, it’s a word game

### 4/5 — …

*2024-01-05, version 1.9.5*

First of all, shoutout to the devs: I emailed them with a question and they quickly responded with a clear explanation that showed they understood my email and weren’t just brushing me off. 

Anyway, I’ve been playing Retrograms daily for about three weeks now. Been enjoying it as a nice spin on the word game genre. (It looks like there are some games on the App Store with the same general mechanics, but not Retrogram’s emphasis on appealing aesthetics.) 

The basic setup features a rotary phone-like dial of letters with one letter in the middle, seven letters in total. Make as many words out of those letters as you can. If you’ve played Boggle you know what’s going on here, except here there’s no timer. 

Two unique rules help keep this from being your garden variety Boggle clone: 1. Every word has to use the center letter. 2. Words have to be 4 letters or longer (ie, it cuts out the typical gimme words like “ale,” “ire,” “ore,” “bar,” etc.). Both work very well in creating Retrogram’s challenge. 

Also unique (at least among the non-themed word games I’ve played) is the accepted word pool seems to be curated somehow. Which is to say, if you’re used to word games that pull from the scrabble dictionary (which most word games seem to), you’ll probably be making some words that aren’t accepted. The degree to which that matters to you will probably depend on how much you lean on weirdo words that people only know because they play word games (think: “qat,” “zymurgy,” etc).

I generally consider the trimmer word list a strength: Feels more like a genuine test of coming up with real words, not a regurgitation exercise. At the same time, a curation means some good words get left off (a few weeks ago I was able to play “ballad” but not “balladeer”), whether by oversight or intentional decision. Likewise, the word list seems curb the endless mileage word game players get out of endings like “-ed” and “-er,” which generally allows obvious words, but not some of the wackier morpheme combinations that have long aided Boggle lovers. 

The curation—while a touch too limited—is a nice change of pace. I dig it. 

That said, it’s impossible to talk about Retrogram without talking about its monetization. Let me be clear: I am pro-premium pricing with games. I dislike the in-game currency micro transactions that most free-to-play banks on. Retrogram avoids that and monetizes with a subscription. I won’t say that they have high prices on their subscription plans—they know much better than I do what they need to support the initial development and ongoing updating of the game—but I do know it’s higher than I would be comfortable with as a consumer. (When I emailed them, they included a discount code for the year-long sub at half price, which did drop the subscription rate to one that made sense to me.)

I do have one suggestion: Integrating word find rates. I don’t want leaderboards or anything super competitive. The casual, laidback vibe is part of the game’s charm. However, I often find myself wondering how many players found the words I found. I’d envision a simple percentage on the prior day’s word list. Just a nice way to get some context for how we performed. 

Anyway, definitely an app worth checking out for fans of word games. But definitely scope out the subscription rates before you get too enthusiastic about it.

### 5/5 — Amazing!

*2023-10-15*

I love this app!! I think it’s better than the NYT game because it shows you what words you’ve done as you type them + it has a super cool theme. The app developers are super nice and fun too! I appreciate the addition of bonus puzzles to make this app extra fun. :)

**Developer response:** Thank you so much! We're working on more and different bonus puzzles :)

### 5/5 — This game is the best!

*2023-09-21*

Love it

**Developer response:** Thank you! Love you too!

### 5/5 — Love the update

*2023-09-18*

As a fan of this kind of puzzle, I tried this app. I love the clean layout, and ease of play. The new layout on the iPad let’s you easily see your words as you go.I LOVE the occasional definitions, side-comments and stories that randomly show up with certain words. Great addition to a classic game. Hopefully the next update will include a play history so you can see how many days you were a wizard.

**Developer response:** Thank you for your lovely review! We’re definitely looking into showing stats and play history (among other things)

### 4/5 — Fun and challenging but with glitches

*2023-05-05*

I’ve had this game for over a year now and I don’t go a day without playing. It’s a fun way to challenge your brain and learn a few new words here and there. It’s easy to use and pretty straightforward. But there have been a few issues with the game. Sometimes it won’t accept a word but then the next day when I check the answers it will show I missed that word. A few weeks ago the puzzle of the day had most of the letters from the previous day’s puzzle, and I had seen on the answer list a word that would work on the current puzzle, yet when entered it wouldn’t accept it. It had the required letter and everything. Why is it accepted one day but not the next? I’ve had a few occasions where a word is accepted on one puzzle but not again on another one. There are also common words that aren’t accepted, like “orzo” or “aloud” which can be frustrating when some obscure words are on the answer sheet. Most recently I’ve noticed the hint option is now gone, which would give you a vague hint to what the pangram was. I enjoy the game but wish these things would be fixed.

**Developer response:** Thank you so much for your review! At times we have added words soon after puzzle release, you must have been quick to catch them! Thanks to your review we have added "orzo" to our list. We remember the terrible night when "aloud" was missed, the person responsible has been punished (...it was me)

### 5/5 — Amazing But…

*2023-02-09, version 1.6.1*

I love this app and play it every day! It’s lowkey even better than the NYT’s Spelling Bee because it tells you whether you’ve already found your word as you’re typing it. I do have two suggestions, though!
1. It can be a bit boring to only have one puzzle to play every day, especially if you finish it earlyish on. Could there perhaps be a puzzle mode, with puzzles of different levels? This way there’d be more puzzles to play!
2. I think it’d be fun if there were statistics! Like what percent of words we usually find, how often we find the pangram(s), etc.

**Developer response:** Thank you so much for your wonderful feedback!

We'll try to include more bonus puzzles, and we have been thinking about stats and how to include them

## Most critical reviews (10 lowest-rated)

### 1/5 — Only one game a day, not free

*2024-12-31, version 2.1*

This game requires an expensive subscription but you only get one game a day. I'll stick to Spelling Bee, which costs less and includes the crossword and other games.

### 1/5 — Nope

*2024-11-21, version 2.1*

Not paying a subscription, see ya.

### 1/5 — They should just tell you it costs $30

*2024-07-09, version 2.1*

They let you download for free and play a couple times but then out if nowhere you can’t play anymore unless you subscribe for at least $30. Thats not cool and expensive for just one game.

### 1/5 — Don’t bother

*2024-06-20*

I absolutely love playing word games and I ditched this app pretty quickly, before having to subscribe. The main reason is that I can’t figure out which dictionary they’re using, or if they’re even using one. There’s a lot of legitimate words that I’ve used in the New York Times Spelling Bee game that they don’t accept. For example, galley wasn’t accepted, Lily - as in the flower - wasn’t accepted. But then there are a lot of proper nouns that are accepted. It makes no sense at all and is really frustrating for someone who loves to play word games. Plus, it looks like the game hasn’t been updated in over a year so I feel like the developers have kind of abandoned it. Better to subscribe to the New York Times games package. Also, check out the app Spelling Queen. It seems to be much better.

**Developer response:** Apologies if we missed a word. We have rules around which words we accept, but do edit by hand each day's puzzle. This means there are a lot of cases where we are on the fence about whether to include a word or not — this decision is then carried forward into future puzzles. GALLEY and LILY should be accepted, we will look into our archives to see why these were missed. Also please note that the game was last updated in March 2024, which is three months ago, and we have many more updates planned, as well as regular bonus puzzle packs which we release monthly

### 1/5 — Don’t support TERFs

*2023-08-07, version 1.8.1*

I love(d) Retrogram but seeing Potter content ruined it for me as an LGBTQIA+ person. The money and visibility generated directly fuel her attacks on innocent transgender individuals and the community  by validating these views are acceptable by the devs. Canceling my subscription with great sadness.

### 1/5 — No longer works on Apple Watch

*2022-11-11, version 1.4*

I paid for this app because it would update every day on my Apple Watch. It hasn’t worked in weeks.

### 1/5 — They make you pay

*2022-05-04, version 1.1.2*

Don’t download,  you play for 3 minutes and then they make you pay. 
I updated my phone for this , dumb

### 1/5 — Deceiving.

*2022-04-12, version 1.1*

This game was fantastic and kept me interested until I spelled my TENTH word- then I was asked to pay .99c/month or SEVEN DOLLARS for the whole game. Major mood downer. Please move on and find your peace somewhere else until this issue is fixed. 🤍🙏🏻

### 1/5 — Misleading

*2022-02-28*

You should mention the in app purchase

**Developer response:** Thank you for your review and for pointing out that you did not see mention of the in-app purchase. We mention it in the app description ("Subscribe to get the Daily Puzzle...) and it is visible under the "In App Purchases" section of the App Store information. We'll look into how we can make it clearer

### 1/5 — eh game

*2022-01-30*

i think my review got deleted, i think people should be careful before they download this game. it says free, but clearly it is not and you need to pay a subscription fee. if you want to, play it then but kinda crappy advertisement and crappy people for deleting reviews

**Developer response:** Thanks for your review Luke! Just to note this is not a randomly generated word puzzle. Each day my partner and I curate a word list, research interesting words, write stories about them (which you can see on the definitions screen), write puzzle hints. The reason we charge a subscription is to support the effort we put in each day to bring you a puzzle that feels balanced, fun, and hopefully teaches you something about words! (Also, the puzzle is free on Sundays if you want to try the full one) 

Update: please note that we have no ability to delete your review. We saw that it had disappeared briefly and then it re-appeared. We have no desire to stop people from sharing their honest feedback about our game! Thanks for taking the time to write

## Most praised reviews (10 highest-rated)

### 5/5 — Retrogram 4eva

*2026-07-15, version 3.0*

Love this app. Play it every day. Thank you for the extra games from the vault!💘

### 5/5 — Great Vocab and UI/UX

*2026-04-23, version 2.2.2*

This game has more vocabulary than few other pangram games. I like the UI of this game the most. I especially like the inline definitions on wider screens (iPad).

Words Missing
Mar 18 2026 - leucine, nucleic
Mar 30 2026 - pinnate, pinna, pinnae
Apr 01 2026 - pell, pili, rape
Apr 02 2026 - pell, pili
Apr 07 2026 - dipole, pell
Apr 08 2026 - brad, biddy
Apr 13 2026 - aether, theatre, helter
Apr 15 2026 - lamina, laminar
Apr 19 2026 - erecter, tricep
Apr 22 2026 - anonym

### 5/5 — Great addition!

*2026-02-18, version 2.2.1*

Thanks!

### 5/5 — Fun fun

*2025-11-03*

Never do this….its worth it

### 5/5 — Why no previous puzzles

*2025-02-27*

I just forked over the big $50 for the game forever under the impression I would be able to play previous puzzles. But I am still only limited to the o e puzzle per day. I don’t understand the logic here. You’re effectively making people pay this subscription just to have the *privilege* of playing your game? That’s so pathetic. 

It’s a fun game and I like the concept of it a lot. But forking over as much as I did with effectively nothing in return kind of feels like a scam to me. Can I please have my money back?

**Developer response:** Thanks for letting us know! Please note, the free version of the game does not allow you to play one puzzle per day. It has a seven day free trial, after which you can play one puzzle per week for free. What you have purchased did unlock the daily puzzle. Apologies for the confusion.

Past puzzles will become available to paid users soon.

### 5/5 — Perfect daily word app

*2024-10-10*

Love the nostalgia of the interface and a puzzle to keep coming back to throughout the day.  I signed up for a year subscription and have now bought lifetime.  Neon Nites was game changing.

**Developer response:** Thank you!

### 5/5 — Satisfying and challenging

*2024-05-10*

A snack sized game, made fresh every day. I play a lot of word games but none that I look forward to as consistently. Worth the subscription!

**Developer response:** Thank you! We loved reading your feedback

### 5/5 — I am a bit confused.

*2024-02-15*

First of all, I like the look and the feel of this game. I appreciate the word lists and the handy way you can switch from an alphabetical list to a list that shows words you have recently found.  

The comments in the definitions are great. Who knew that Preener is one of Santa’s reindeer, and the vainest to boot ? 

Now, why am I confused ?  I’m not sure exactly how the daily games work.  Do I need to pay for them ?  How about the Bonus games ?  If I don’t want to sign up for Instagram or Mastadon (?), how can I get a discount ?   I have been able to figure out some of this from the Comment section, but a page on the App explaining all this would be really helpful . 

Love this game. Keep ‘em comin’.  🙂

**Developer response:** Thank you so much for your review! To clear some things up, bonus puzzles are free. Sunday's puzzle is free. The daily puzzle requires a subscription

If you'd like a discount you can use ILOVEWORDS for 50% off one year

### 5/5 — Good

*2024-01-01, version 1.9.5*

She said

### 5/5 — There is no better word game.

*2023-12-30*

Works great with a morning coffee, works great as a real brain workout. The puzzles are difficult, but achievable with practice. The perfect everyday game

I understand subscriptions ensure guaranteed income, but I would happily pay a steeper once-off fee than an ongoing subscription

**Developer response:** Thank you so much for your lovely review! We really appreciate your feedback, finding the balance between a hard puzzle and an impossible one is something we try to do every day

We sometimes offer a lifetime purchase and it should be available at the time of this reply

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*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 2026-09-05.*