Crossword City Chronicles Review (Steam)

Play as a 1950s reporter investigating crimes by using your word-building skills to interview, interrogate, convince, deceive & debate your way to a solution! Draw letters tiles onto a rack, then place them on the board to make a word that connects with those already placed to advance the plot.

Pros:

• Cutesy cartoon graphics.
• 138.93MB download size.
• Steam achievements.
• Male/female character choices.
• Crossword gameplay.
• Drag and drop control system.
• Each set of levels is a case, as you finish levels you get clues on who what and where it all happened.
• Multiple styles of play.
• Special times two squares.
• World map level select.
• Can replay cases.
• Can replay individual levels.
• Earn coins from playing.
• Upgrade the effectiveness of characters and letters score with coins and stamps.
• You get a green tick of your word is valid.
• The main style of play is the grid will have two words already on it and you add letters to make words and score.
• The debate style of play is a load of letters will be on a small grid, drop a letter into the score, bombs go off for bonus points.
• Grey tiles can be played but score nothing.
• Levels randomize every attempt.
• Can rotate your letters.
• Clear Hud with moves left, score and menu shown.
• End of level breakdown and score.
• After a short time, a helpfully highlighted square will pop up and show which letter to play.
• No penalty for using the highlighted square prompt.
• Straight up mobile port.
• Good time waster.
• Simple to pick up.
• Straightforward gameplay.
• Timed gameplay variations.
• Mislead playstyle has you needing to join columns up with words.
• Convinced playstyle has you needing to get a certain score.
• Cases have multiple endings.
• Set in the 1950s.
• Over 200 levels.
• Can get quite addictive.

Cons:

• Says touch here all over the menus.
• No controller support.
• No graphic settings at all.
• Only the one mode.
• The screen is the size of an iPad.
• Straight up mobile port.
• The letters given to you are badly more than they are good.
• It’s all about luck.
• Little point in going for the full score on every level and case.
• Not what I call crosswords. This is just putting words into a grid and scoring.
• No online leaderboards.
• The story is just window dressing.
• Getting full awards on a level doesn’t feel like it affects gameplay or the outcome.
• They don’t describe how the upgrade feature works or that it even exists.
• No actual detection work, it’s just a case of score X amount of points and moves the story along.
• I quit the game a few times and upon rebooting it would lose all your tiles and force a restart.