Phrase Shift Reviews

The game gives good vocab practice to ESL students in an interactive and engaging way. Allows for the use of hints if one finds themselves stuck. Will use this as a warm-up with some students of mine

About 2-3 minutes in, this has become of my favorite casual puzzle games. the UI is simple, clean with little or no need for fancy AAA graphics being pumped out today. This is no Dishonored 2, Watchdogs 2, or Rollercoaster Tycoon World (I wouldn't touch that game though), but more of a good buy for a new genre of play on 'Words-Within-Words' word game. Reminds of the clean puzzle game Polarium (DS) and Polarium Advanced (GBA), where you are given a preset of ready made puzzles and if you finish them all, that is pretty much it, with expection to their modes of clearing out random falling blocks (DS) and a time attack mode (GBA). I would have liked to seen a custom mode, where you can make your own puzzles, but I wonder how curation would be regulated when it comes to correctly spelling the word or not. Nonetheless, it's a great starter for this new way of word games.

Stumbled upon this because I was looking for some nice little word games to play. I love crosswords, and this was a good spin on it. The clues were thoughtful considering the layout. It was challenging but not rage inducing. The achievements were a breeze. I need more of this!

It's okay - not brilliant, but okay. The length is about right for how little variety the gimmick provides, though the pack-based structure of the game would easily allow for endless expansion of the content. Sadly, a number of clues seemed a touch unhelpful or felt forced. A minor complaint is that you cannot change the volume - just mute sound altogether, and the game is unmuted every time you launch it anyway.

This game takes a simple concept and turns into an experience that is very clever. There are 600 puzzles total, giving you many puzzles for a low price. Horizontal words are arranged in rows. Reading these lines will give you the clue about what the word they want you to guess is. You can move the letters in these horizontal rows in order to create the answer to the solution vertically (the white column). Although the clues are minimilistic, it gives you enough of a clue that you usually able to figure it out. Puzzles range from 3 letter words to 8 letter words. There are different themes, and depending on your knowledge, some puzzles can be very challenging. The movie pack for example is probably one of the more cryptic ones, given that they are only allowed to give you so much information. Even when you are stumped, you can use a clue to reveal one letter at a time to help with the puzzle. The clues recharge quickly, and there are no penalties, allowing you to use them as many times as you'd like. Even when the clues are a bit far fetched and difficult to figure out, it's not too hard. Comparitively, the rest of the game is pretty easy to figure out. It has a nice relaxing sound track and easy achievements. It does not have cloud saves - so make sure not to do 39/40 puzzles in one pack on one computer and then move to another one, you won't be able to continue where you left off. Would recommend this to people who love crossword puzzles or other similar puzzle type games.

A fun little diversion that would fit well on a portable device while on a long trip, but not if you're driving. In that sense, it's worth the dollar. There is one little programming oversight, though: none of the starting letters are ever in the solution. If you see a two-letter row, the non-lit letter is always the right one.

Absolutely facile. I should've read the reviews on this one, but I liked the concept of the game, and it was cheap, so I just bought it - but my god. I've got a good vocabulary, granted, but I don't think this would challenge a 12-year-old. It's ludicrously easy; the only time answers aren't immediately obvious is when the clue-words are awkward in a way that overshoots cryptic and arrives at obfuscation.

Fun, creative word game. How it works: You are given a clue arranged in words stacked on top of each other forming a sentence. One word per line. Using that clue you have to move the words left or right until the correct letters for the solution are in the lighted up vertical line. You can see examples in the screenshots and game's description. The game is arranged in different categories. 3 letter words, 4 letter words, etc. up to 8 letters, then categories like Food, Science, Animals, Fashion, and Misc. categories. To be honest the game is fairly easy. There is a cheat button which will reveal one of the letters. I have used that a few times when I was stumped and didn't want to sit there thinking forever. What I really like about the game is the creative clue descriptions. They had to really be clever sometimes to have only so many words and with the correct letters for the clue. This would be a nice family game. Everyone sit around the screen and the first to shout out the answer wins a point. Keep going until a set number of points is reached or a time limit, whatever you decide. So far it's been family-friendly, no risque words, but I have not completed the game yet, so don't take my word for it yet. The pace is pretty quick, until you get stumped. I play for about 15 minutes a day before I get bored and want to play something else. So this is not one of those puzzle games where you play for hours at a time. Overall, I recommend this game. Price is cheap and seems good for the amount of content you get. Graphics are minimal, as seen in screenshots. Sounds are limited; I think there's a sound for getting a word right but I don't remember much else.

I really loved this little word puzzle game! Of course it's available only in English, and it can be quite challenging, but it's worth it trust me :) You have more than 500 different puzzles, and you basically have to shift the given words in order to find a single word matching the ones above. So, it's quite unique since it's a word game but the answer is more like a riddle you have to solve by reading the other given words.. no need for hints! :) Overall, a relaxing game which can be even more enjoyed by those like me who have English as maybe their third or fourth language! Probably for a native speaker isn't -that- difficult but it has so many puzzles that it can still be enjoyable and relaxing. And of course, Steam is full of non-English native speakers, so why not? :) By the way, I've been stuck some times during the very first sets of puzzles too.. ahahah

This little puzzle game has a lot going for it, probably - it's an interesting concept, it's very cheap, and it's vaguely reminiscent of solving crossword puzzle hints. In the end, though, I can't recommend it. Some clues are insultingly simple, such as the one with "bee" as a solution. Others, especially in the "movies" section, are impossible without either extensive guesswork or specific cultural knowledge. (For that matter, some of the "movies" puzzles contain spoilers!) And some phrases aren't especially difficult, but just kind of stretch things in an awkward way. There are even a couple cases where a puzzle or solution is repeated! So many answers are simple enough that I want to recommend this game for English learners... but they'd be completely stymied by the more obscure or awkward puzzles. In the end, despite the crossword puzzle comparison, *none* of these puzzles gave me an especially deep feeling of satisfaction to solve. Everything was either trivial, frustrating, or just kind of blah. Perhaps most damning of all is that while I was solving the puzzles, I made a little challenge for myself to see if I could maximize the number of columns I lined up for each solution. That's right, I had to make a game within the game to keep it even mildly interesting. I'm left with the feeling that we're actually seeing the wrong end of things: the actual *fun* game contained within this idea would be a social game where you've given the solution, have limited time to come up with a phrase like the ones that form these puzzles, and then vote on who came up with the best phrase. In other words, what we're seeing here is just the results of the real game, which the creator(s) already played without us.