Hello, Gameologerinos, and welcome to our weekly thread for the discussion of weekend gaming plans and recent gaming glories. My plan this weekend is to continue trudging through Mass Effect: Andromeda for you, the dear readers, but when I’m not shooting aliens and gawking at glitches, I’m going to be dipping into Typeshift. It’s a new release from Zach Gage, the creator of SpellTower, which is still one of the best word games ever brought to mobile.
There’s a theme to Gage’s game concepts: They all look to reinvent classic games and puzzles that you might find buried in a Sunday newspaper. Typeshift is his take on jumbles and crosswords. You’re given a grid of letters and are able to slide each column up and down as you look to create words in the center row, which changes the color of the letters you used. In the main puzzle mode, it’s all about finding several words hidden inside the cluster and changing the color of every letter on the board. There’s also a crossword-style mode where you’re given clues for what’s lurking in the letter bank. As with all of Gage’s works, it’s an appealingly minimalist game with a smart, simple hook, and the whole thing is powered by Merriam-Webster’s dictionary. A simplified version without the crossword mode is even available on Merriam-Webster’s website, but the full release can be played for free—with additional packs of puzzles available for purchase—on iOS.