Edutainment

Like Pet Care, Guess The Word is another Switch app that is designed to help teach your youngster with spelling. Solely using the touch screen, the player is presented with a picture and a set of letters, like the tiles in a game of Scrabble, and the player needs to spell what the picture is.  It is sort of like a much more casual form of Wheel of Fortune.  The player just needs to drag the letters to the bottom of the screen to spell what the picture is using the touch screen.

There are no difficulty settings so there are words of varying difficulties.  Sure, words like “cat” or “candies” are easy to spell but occasionally a word like “giraffe” will appear that will make adults stutter.  Luckily, there is no way to lose as the game just encourages the player to try again if you get a letter wrong.  Also, after several seconds, the game will actually place letters for the player, providing a gentle nudge for spelling newbies.

My biggest gripe with Guess The Word is how the corresponding picture loads.  Instead of loading thoughtfully, the image always loads from the top down.  While any adult should be able to put the word together just by looking at the tiles, waiting for the picture to load portion by portion vertically can be misleading. There is a timer in the upper corner to gauge how fast the player solves each word but there is no score involved making this a casual experience through and through. Also, the player is unable to place letters in the incorrect positions as the game will simply reject it.  So if the player wanted to “cheat,” they can just drag and drop letters into position until the word is correct without penalty.

Guess The Word runs on the same engine as Pet Care, Ultimate Games SA’s other young kid Switch eShop app.  Meaning, although simple, the graphics are colorful and seems like everything was drawn in Adobe Illustrator.  However, the worst part about this eShop download is the final “congratulations” screen.  Once all the rounds have been completed and a final score of one, two, or three stars has been given, this cartoon dude appears and creepily says “congratulations” while giving a Mr. Burns “excellent” finger wave repeatedly until a button is pressed.  Hearing this “congratulations” message repeat is something government agents should use to interrogate terrorists instead of water boarding them. 

Guess The Word is not a great game by any means but it is not supposed to be. Although it costs a little more than Pet Care, this game can educate young players on spelling. Essentially acting as an electronic set of flash cards, this eShop title does its job. Just be sure to skip the creepy dude on the end summary screen.

Better Than: anything by Skunk Software

Also Try: Coloring Book (Switch)

Wait For It: homework to do over the weekend

By: Zachary Gasiorowski, Editor in Chief myGamer.com

Twitter: @ZackGaz