Twitty Words

It aims to provide distraction free, absorbing gameplay.

You can play in your own time, or against the clock, or against a robot, on grid of various sizes.

The game features high scores, hints, undo, and shuffles.

The hint system is deliberately disappointing and of limited use. It's throttled to one use per game; it uses a relatively small dictionary; it mostly contains just word roots (eg BOX) so you have to find longer words (BOXES, BOXED, BOXING); you won't get a very high score using it.

You can swap adjacent letters by selecting two adjacent tiles, but this hurts your score. The cost is the two letter values times the number of times you've swapped letters since last finding a word.

You have to compromise when using the high value tiles (Q and Z, then J and X) now or save them for later.

The dictionary contains obscure words for you to discover. You're not told what the obscure words mean.

The user interface contains things for you to explore. It's not immediately clear how you find the 'choose a color scheme' menu or how you can finish some games.

The high score table taunts you with a record of 1000.

If you use a blank tile, you're not told what the tile stood for.

The mode names on the opening menu are obtuse.

In the timed and untimed modes, the value of the remaining tiles is quietly deducted from your score with no warning. I was doing my taxes when I thought of that.

The sound effects are almost random; distract yourself trying to give them meaning.

I have no idea why it got called "Twitty Words".