This is the two hundred forty-third entry in the Scratching That Itch series, wherein I randomly select and write about one of the 1741 games and game-related things included in the itch.io Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality. The Bundle raised $8,149,829.66 split evenly between the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund and Community Bail Fund, but don’t worry if you missed it. There are plenty of ways you can help support the vital cause of racial justice; try here for a start. Lastly, as always, you may click on images to view larger versions.

Our two hundred forty-third random selection from the itch.io Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality is asking us to make words. It’s Sidewords, by Milkbag Games, and its tagline in the bundle reads:

Grab a cup of coffee and relax with a good puzzle

I don’t drink coffee, but fortunately it’s not required to enjoy these puzzles.

Sidewords seems simple at first. It offers puzzles made from two words, one written across the top in pink, and one written down the side in blue. This creates a grid of squares. Players must fill that grid with words using the corresponding letters from the rows and columns of the grid. Words must be at least three letters long, and must use at least one pink and one blue letter each, but otherwise players have free reign to fill the grid however they like.

Early puzzles are small, to get players used to the rules. I filled in some rectangles on the grid to solve them, and sometimes even managed to do the whole puzzle with a single word. But that didn’t last long. Soon, I was forced to engage with a surprising number of nuances that emerge from the design. For example, words don’t have to fill out a contiguous area of the grid. They can have gaps, filling in e.g. a single square on one side and a bunch more elsewhere, something that quickly became necessary to solve the larger puzzles. It’s also important to carefully consider the letters in each word. Every pink letter must be used in at least one word with each of the blue letters, and vice versa. Is there a pink T and a blue T? Then you need to come up with a word with two Ts in it. And how are you going to deal with that Y and K?

My partner loves word puzzles, so I enlisted them to play Sidewords together. We’ve been having a blast solving the larger puzzles, which can have 5, 6, or even 7 letters on a side. At that scale, we need to be strategic in how we approach things. Too often, I’m tempted to make the biggest words I can, only to find that they lock up the grid and leave us unable to finish the puzzle. My partner is more careful, realizing that that one corner that has NT in pink and MP in blue is going to be a pain to fill, and should be done first while there are still lots of other letters available.

Most, if not all, of these puzzles can be solved in many different ways. Sometimes we do use some big words to clear out troublesome letters, then fill out the rest of the grid with smaller spellings. Other times, the grid is a patchwork of smaller words, each filling up a spattering of squares, yet somehow managing to fill them all. It helps that my partner keeps pulling out words I’ve never heard of, that they know from other word games. Sometimes I was certain we’d created an unwinnable configuration, only to discover that there is indeed some weird word that can fill it out. We really enjoyed the creativity these puzzles allow, while still presenting a challenge.

With over two hundred puzzles, Sidewords is very generous. We haven’t even finished all the puzzles yet. When we do, there are daily puzzles (possibly procedurally generated, since the game doesn’t seem to connect to a sever or anything?) that we could keep solving, plus an entirely separate bonus game called Quads with completely different rules. So there’s plenty here to please any word puzzle lovers out there, making Sidewords an easy recommendation. If you missed it in the bundle, Sidewords is sold for a minimum price of $4.99. It’s also sold separately for smartphones (both Apple and Android), if you fancy doing some puzzles on the go.

That’s 243 down, and only 1498 to go!