Comparison

Phantom Words vs Word Search Incremental Co.

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

Head to head
About

Phantom Words

Unscramble letters by sliding rows and columns to form words. Discover hidden letters as you play, with increasing complexity and new mechanics introduced. Offers multiple game modes for varied challenges.

Highlights
  • Sliding row and column puzzles
  • Hidden letter discovery
  • Progressive difficulty
  • Multiple game modes (Classic, Endless, Daily, Lightning)
  • iCloud sync across devices
  • Game Center leaderboards
Features
Currently charting
Read full description

We made Phantom Words for anyone who loves that small, satisfying moment when a jumble of letters suddenly turns into a word. Each board begins scrambled, with most of the letters hidden behind ghost tiles. Slide rows and columns like a 2D Rubik’s Cube, then look for words running across or down the board. Whenever you make one using a tile for the first time, another letter appears. Once every tile is used, the puzzle is complete. Longer words are worth more, while tiles lose value each time you use them. Yellow means a tile is nearly spent; red means you’ve leaned on it too often. Later boards introduce gaps that split rows and columns, multi-letter tiles that keep their letters together, wildcards that can stand in for any letter, and locked tiles that stay fixed until you use them in a word. And if a solution feels messy, you can always come back and find a more elegant one. There are four ways to play: • Classic has 99 handmade levels with increasing difficulty and evolving mechanics. • Endless starts small and procedurally grows while you play. • Daily Challenge gives everyone a new board each day, plus a streak to keep going. • Lightning Mode is the same word hunting, but against the clock. Classic, Endless, and Daily Challenge aren’t timed, so there’s no rush. You get a full score breakdown after each level and can replay it whenever you want. Your progress and settings sync across your devices with iCloud. There are also Game Center leaderboards if you care about high scores. We hope you enjoy discovering the words we’ve hidden for you.

About

Word Search Incremental Co.

Features
Read full description

A real word search, made hard. Every letter on a Hard board comes from its own words, so every letter looks like part of one, and each word is there exactly once. Play a new Daily board every day, a Campaign that never ends, or a Random board at the size you pick, offline and at your own pace. Then the twist: one word hidden in up to 16,777,216 letters, and a crew of cows you hire to clear the rest. HARD MODE: CLASSIC, MADE HARD A small grid, up to 20 × 20, built only from the letters of its words, so every cell is a near-miss. Each word is in there exactly once. - Daily: one new board a day in each board language. Share your medal and time. - Campaign: endless, ten levels a chapter, a boss at the end of each. From chapter 2, twists: anagrams, rush, repeats, long words and blind. - Random: one word or a list, at the size you pick. - Stars without pressure: any finish clears a level. Find it fast for a gold star, faster for purple. The clock stays hidden unless you turn it on. - Stuck? HINT shows where to look. COMPASS shows the word's direction. INCREMENTAL: FIND ONE WORD IN MILLIONS Your goal word sits at the top of the screen. It is hidden once, somewhere in 65,536 letters, and the biggest board has 16,777,216. Swipe it and you win the board. Every other real word you swipe pays credits, and credits hire cow coworkers who clear the board while you look. They never take your word. The find is always yours. Word Search Incremental Co. is a word search and an incremental game in one. The Co. is for company. It is also for cow. MEET THE CREW Seven kinds of cow work for you, each with one job, and every cow walks on by itself. - Cleaner: clears letters that no word can use. - Cashier: swipes words and pays you for each. It stops if one touches your word. - Labeler: tints a letter of your word everywhere it reads. - Sorter: picks one letter, never one from your word, and marks it across its sector. - Recycler: clears like the Cleaner and turns letters into points. - Auditor: a desk that reads each sector and reports the words and letters left. - Moonager: a desk that sends your crew to the next sector worth reading. Credits hire the first three. Bells open the other four. Pause any cow, or the whole crew, when you want to look for yourself. CREDITS GO UP. LETTERS GO DOWN. Level up your cows and they read faster, up to hundreds of letters a second. Every letter the crew clears is gone for good, so your word gets easier to see. Zoom out, and keep zooming. YOUR UPGRADES STAY. End a board whenever you like. Its credits and cows go with it. Your points and bells stay. Points buy permanent upgrades in the Workshop. Finding the goal word on size M or bigger pays bells, and bells take on more cows. UP TO 16,777,216 LETTERS. Five board sizes, from S with 65,536 letters to XL with 16,777,216. A new size opens when you find the word on your biggest size, or clean five of its sectors. WORDS IN FIVE LANGUAGES. Play both modes in English, Spanish (Español), French (Français), Portuguese (Português) or Japanese katakana (カタカナ). On the big board you can also pick Places, where only the names of countries and cities count. Menus in 20 languages. PLAY AT YOUR OWN PACE. No energy, no lives. Plays offline. Your crew keeps working while the game is closed, at 10% of its speed, and Night shift in the Workshop raises it, up to 50%. Come back after five minutes or more, and a receipt shows what the crew did while you were away. ADS, AND PREMIUM There is a banner, and a full-screen ad when you start a new board after scrapping one. A crew boost and a crate of points are offered for watching an ad, and in Hard mode a video pays for a helper when your clues run out. Premium is one purchase: no banner, no full-screen ads, the extras without watching, and three free helpers a day in Hard mode.

Screenshots

Phantom Words4 screens
Word Search Incremental Co.4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is price: Word Search Incremental Co. at Free against Phantom Words's $2.99. Phantom Words's advantage is ads (none vs shown) and chart position (#35 vs unranked). On update cadence, in-app purchases, device support and iOS requirement 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

Word Search Incremental Co. is free to download; Phantom Words costs $2.99 up front. Phantom Words sells 3 one-off in-app purchases and Word Search Incremental Co. sells 3 one-off in-app purchases. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Phantom Words ships an update every 5 days, Word Search Incremental Co. every 3 days. Both last shipped on November 10, 2026.

Scorecard3 real differences · 8 level
Phantom Words versus Word Search Incremental Co.: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterPhantom WordsWord Search Incremental Co.
Price$2.99Free — better
Rating4.7 (24 ratings) — better—
Positive reviews93.3% of reviews—
Number of ratings24 — better—
Update frequencyEvery 5 daysEvery 3 days — better
AdsNo — betterYes
In-app purchasesYesYes
MonetizationFree—
Best chart rank#35 — better—
DevicesiPhone, iPadiPhone, iPad, iPod — better
Requires iOS16.615.0 — better
Further details — not scored
Size131 MB51 MB
Age rating+44+
DeveloperFleon LabsKiattisak Kalkumnerd

In-app purchases

3 purchases

Phantom Words

One-time3
  • Kind Supporter$2.49
  • Generous Supporter$4.99
  • Huge Supporter$9.99
3 purchases

Word Search Incremental Co.

One-time3
  • 12 Clues$0.99
  • 40 Clues$1.99
  • Remove ads$4.99

Questions

Is Phantom Words free?
Phantom Words costs $2.99, and also offers in-app purchases.
Is Word Search Incremental Co. free?
Word Search Incremental Co. is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Do Phantom Words or Word Search Incremental Co. have ads?
Word Search Incremental Co. shows ads; Phantom Words does not.
Which is updated more often, Phantom Words or Word Search Incremental Co.?
Phantom Words ships an update every 5 days, and Word Search Incremental Co. every 3 days. Most recently, Phantom Words was updated on November 10, 2026 and Word Search Incremental Co. on November 10, 2026.

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