G&G Games, a New York-based indie studio, recently released the casual puzzle game UnWord for iOs. Players of UnWord are given one longer word, and tasked with reorganizing the letters in that word into as many shorter words as possible before the time runs out. The game’s rules are short and clear, a good sign for a casual indie.

Players can play solo, compare high scores through Facebook, or play against offline friends with pass-and-play. Pass-and-play mode always seems to lends itself well to mobile games, allowing two (or sometimes more) players to hand the console back and forth, comparing scores. It seems to be how I find myself playing most mobile games, sitting on the train or waiting at the airport, and casual puzzles around words and spelling, like UnWord, are particularly easy to share.

With UnWord, each game is one minute long, designed for casual play. The limited-time mechanic is a common motivator in puzzle games, but here, one minute prohibits players from fully taking advantage of the puzzle. With so many letters and so many combinations, the minute limit means never being able to use every combination, so no obsessively perfect scores, and no chance to even type all the words you can find. Instead of an exciting motivator, the time limit made the goals feel impossible.

The press release that originally intrigued me to download, play, and review this game referred to “thousands of word combinations”, and I couldn’t help feeling like the one-minute time limit directly blocks players from accessing those combinations. I kept looking around for casual mode, or hoping to unlock bonus time, or untimed levels, but instead I kept feeling like I was missing puzzles, like I was prohibited from accessing a game I’d have wanted to play. UnWord felt like a solid prototype or beta, with one mechanic in desperate need of work.

More information on UnWord can be found on the official website and purchases can be made fro $0.99 on the App Store.

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