Comparison

Obscurant vs Astraware Wordsearch

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both games, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

Obscurant

A challenging puzzle game where you fire rays into a grid to deduce the location of hidden targets. Offers adjustable difficulty and helpful hints to aid players.

Highlights
  • Ray firing mechanics
  • Target placement
  • Adjustable difficulty
  • Ray path visualization
  • In-game legend
  • Persistent puzzle state
Features
Read full description

A beautiful solitaire "black box" game for the iPhone and iPod Touch. This classic game of hide and seek is a puzzle where you fire rays into a grid of cells and interpret the results to locate hidden targets. Touch and release the red "ray bays" around the edge of the grid to fire a ray. Tap in the grid to summon and drag targets to where you think they are. Tap the "Legend" button for a quick study of the ray results and their meanings. Obscurant has been crafted with meticulous attention to detail so that it feels like a natural part of your device. It starts up rapidly and always remembers your current puzzle in its current state, making it easy to resume and ponder anytime you like. Perfect for whiling away a few minutes while standing in line, or anytime you want a quick mental workout. Understanding the behavior of the rays can be tricky for new users, so Obscurant provides several ways to handicap one's score while making the game much easier: - The paths of the rays can be shown during the game. You can also turn them on at the end of a normal game, in order to understand the results. - The hidden targets can be kept off of the edges of the grid, where they often produce the most difficult results. - The number of targets, which is normally four, can be reduced to 1, 2, or 3. (Or, increase the number to 5 for a harder game.) - A pop-up legend is available to provide quick reminders of the game rules: tap the "Legend" button to see it. A button on the legend page links to more complete online documentation.

About

Astraware Wordsearch

Engage in a classic word search experience with daily and weekly puzzles. Discover hidden words across various themes and categories, with helpful hints and offline play options. Learn new words and test your vocabulary in this fun and engaging game.

Highlights
  • Daily and Weekender puzzles
  • 60 built-in puzzles
  • Over 20 categories
  • Helpful hints
  • Offline play
  • Themed puzzles
  • High score tables
Features
Read full description

Astraware Wordsearch is a quick and easy word game with lots of free puzzles for you to play - find all the words hidden in the puzzle! Play against the clock or take your time and just enjoy finding them all! You get free unlimited access to play four new Daily Wordsearch puzzles each day, there's also a new Weekender puzzle available each Friday! There are 60 built-in and unlocked puzzles with a range of categories, so you can play offline and have fun right away. With over 20 categories, and more than 100 different word lists, there's lots of variety as you play the free puzzles each day - and perhaps learn something new too. Many of the puzzles have a different theme, so you might see cute paw-prints on the cat breeds wordsearch, a cascade of leaves on the nature puzzles, a sparkle of stars on the space theme, and much more! Astraware Wordsearch has helpful hints - tap to sparkle the start of a word to give you somewhere to look!), and our popular hold-and-highlight so that you can hold a word to see the first letter lit up throughout the grid, or hold a letter to highlight that letter everywhere! Astraware Wordsearch Top Features: - Free unlimited access to our Daily and Weekender puzzles, each with their own online high score table! - 60 fully-free puzzles in a range of categories to give you plenty of fun! - Play any of the puzzles from the past week and catch up whenever you like! - Unlimited helpful hints - Endless puzzle streams - A wide variety of words in lots of themes - very helpful for early readers and students! - Built-in Special Event Searches, each available for just a few days! - Jump straight into a daily game from the iOS 14 widget, or asking Siri Wordsearch categories and lists include: Cat breeds, dogs, animals, birds, nature, world capitals, geography, weather, fashion, food and drink, history, music, poetry, books, history, USA states & capitals, songs, language, spelling, books, girls' & boys' names, TV shows, films, shows & musicals, sports, football and baseball teams, computer games, constellations, and lots more! If you love this game and you're an avid puzzler, you will be pleased to know that we have other apps available in the Astraware range: CodeWords, Kriss Kross, Number Cross, Acrostics, and of course Astraware Crosswords! Puzzles Plus Subscription Terms and Details Puzzles Plus is our optional subscription which entitles you to play all of the available Daily, Weekender and Stream puzzles as soon as they are available, without in-game adverts. Subscriptions are available with renewal periods of either monthly, quarterly, or yearly. The price shown is the cost of the renewal, with the saving compared to the monthly option. After you confirm a subscription, you will have a free trial period of seven days. Your iTunes Account will be charged as soon as the free trial is over. If you cancel the subscription at any time before the free trial is over, you will not be billed. The subscriptions are automatically renewing, and you will be charged again at the end of your current subscription period. Your subscription will automatically renew unless you turn this off at least 24 hours before the end of the current period. The renewal cost will be the same for each subscription period, and will be charged within the 24 hours before the end of your current subscription. You can manage the subscriptions at any time by going to the Account Settings in the Settings App after purchase. There are options to either change to a different renewal period or to cancel your subscription completely. If you cancel the renewal you will still have access to the Puzzles Plus features until the subscription period is complete. If you confirm the subscription before the free trial is complete, any unused portionwill be lost. These terms are available at : https://www.astraware.com/about/puzzlesplus/ For more information on Data and Privacy, please view https://www.astraware.com/privacy

Screenshots

Obscurant1 screens
Astraware Wordsearch4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is price: Astraware Wordsearch at Free against Obscurant's $0.99. Astraware Wordsearch also leads on update cadence (every 6 weeks vs every 69 months) and ratings volume (56 vs 2). Obscurant's advantage is in-app purchases (none vs 10) and ads (none vs shown). On rating and device support there is nothing between them.

Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Astraware Wordsearch is free to download; Obscurant costs $0.99 up front. Astraware Wordsearch sells 10 in-app purchases, starting at $1.99 per month. Obscurant asks for nothing beyond the download.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

Obscurant holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 4.8. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Astraware Wordsearch has 56 ratings behind it against 2, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 100% of Obscurant's written reviews are positive against 80% of Astraware Wordsearch's.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Obscurant ships an update every 69 months, Astraware Wordsearch every 6 weeks. The most recent releases landed on November 1, 2026 and November 6, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard8 real differences · 2 level
Obscurant versus Astraware Wordsearch: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterObscurantAstraware Wordsearch
Price$0.99Free — better
Rating5.0 (2 ratings) — better4.8 (56 ratings)
Positive reviews100.0% of reviews — better80.5% of reviews
Number of ratings256 — better
Update frequencyEvery 69 monthsEvery 6 weeks — better
AdsNo — betterYes
In-app purchasesNo — betterYes
MonetizationPaidFree with in-app purchases — better
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPodiPhone, iPad, iPod
Requires iOS13.0 — better15.6
Further details — not scored
Size16 MB44 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperThe BeguilerieAstraware Limited

Customer experience

Obscurant

All ratings2 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%
Written reviews6 reviews
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

Astraware Wordsearch

All ratings56 ratings
Positive98.2%
Neutral1.8%
Negative0.0%
Written reviews41 reviews
Positive80.5%
Neutral7.3%
Negative12.2%

Bugs and requests

Obscurant

Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.

Astraware Wordsearch

Reported bugs

6 issues
  • App will not open, just crashes
  • App spontaneously closes mid-game and loses progress
  • Survey system keeps kicking users out for not qualifying
  • Paid version still shows ads
  • Game reverts to version with ads after re-installation
Show 1 more
  • Words are sometimes spelled incorrectly

Requested features

4 requests
  • More categories that match other word search puzzles
  • Randomly generated extra packs that can be replayed
  • More stats to see performance per puzzle or category
  • More daily puzzles available

In-app purchases

None

Obscurant

No in-app purchases

10 purchases

Astraware Wordsearch

Subscriptions3
  • Puzzles Plus7 Days trial$1.991 Month
  • Puzzles Plus7 Days trial$2.993 Months
  • Puzzles Plus7 Days trial$7.991 Year
One-time7
  • Fun-size Pack$0.99
  • Animal Puzzles Pack$0.99
  • Fun Size Pack 2$0.99
Show 4 more
  • Family Pack$1.99
  • Vacation Pack$3.99
  • Ad-Free daily puzzles$3.99
  • Deluxe Puzzle Pack$4.99

Questions

Is Obscurant free?
Obscurant costs $0.99, with no in-app purchases.
Is Astraware Wordsearch free?
Astraware Wordsearch is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Which has better reviews, Obscurant or Astraware Wordsearch?
Obscurant is rated higher. Obscurant averages 5.0 out of 5 from 2 ratings, while Astraware Wordsearch averages 4.8 from 56 ratings.
Do Obscurant or Astraware Wordsearch have ads?
Astraware Wordsearch shows ads; Obscurant does not.
Which is updated more often, Obscurant or Astraware Wordsearch?
Obscurant ships an update every 69 months, and Astraware Wordsearch every 6 weeks. Most recently, Obscurant was updated on November 1, 2026 and Astraware Wordsearch on November 6, 2026.

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