Alphabetron

Alphabetron is a simple, straightforward, yet fun word search game, perfect for casual players and ideal for bite-sized sessions. You start with a few words and build your way up to more words, eventually working your way up to a slightly bigger grid of letters. But in the end, none of them were too challenging, which made the experience a breeze. I loved how all the words fitted the given theme: a silly detail, but a fun one, just like in the real-world search puzzle books IRL. And while it’s very clean and polished, I did wish it had a few options—the background colour changing, for example. During the daytime, I didn’t have many issues with it, but towards the late evening, it began to annoy me a little. Perhaps it was the tiredness? I wish I could turn it into one steady colour. And maybe a little more variation in music. Surely, the one track is a banger in my opinion, but not one I want to listen to for two hours on end. Of course, to me, these two minor points are no reason to give it a thumbs down. After all, I still got my dopamine hit every time I swiped through a word and managed to cross it off the list. So, for me, it’s a big thumbs up for this little time-waster. Nothing groundbreaking or crazy, just clean, well-executed fun. And sometimes it doesn’t need to be more than just that. The first level VS an endgame level: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3560463284 https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3560463525 [hr] I would be super grateful if you could consider following me over at the following places for more first looks, reviews, recommendations, etc: [list] [*]|[url= https://www.youtube.com/@Tchii] My first looks [/url]| ~My YouTube channel. [*]|[url=https://steamcommunity.com/groups/TchiiMadeYaLook/curation] Tchii made ya look [/url]| ~My curator [*]|[url=https://steamcommunity.com/groups/Indie_Gems/curation] IndieGems [/url]| ~Wonderful Indie curator [*]|[url=https://www.youtube.com/@IndieGems2] IndieGems Gameplay [/url]| ~IndieGem's YouTube channel. [*]|[url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/26279617/] Calm [/url]| ~Curator for the Dutch-speaking folks out here. [*]|[url=https://www.youtube.com/@yoshiruless] Calm's first looks [/url]| ~Calm's YouTube channel. [/list] Thank you! [hr]

Nice to see a word search puzzle game on Steam! It feels like we don't see that type of puzzle game that much on this platform. It also features a nice achievement list that can be completed in around 2 hours and has no missables. [b]Approximate time to 100%:[/b] Around 2 hours [b]Estimated achievement difficulty:[/b] 1/10 [b]Minimum number of playthroughs needed:[/b] 1 [b]Is there a good guide available:[/b] You don't need a guide [b]Multiplayer achievements:[/b] No [b]Missable achievements:[/b] No [b]Grinding Achievements:[/b] No [b]DLC-Only achievements:[/b] No [b]Speedrun achievements:[/b] Not really, one achievement has a time element, but you can first search the words and just wait with marking them, and then mark them quickly one after the other. However, I got this achievement naturally without even trying to go for it. [b]Time-gated achievements:[/b] No [b]RNG-achievements:[/b] No [b]Does difficulty affect achievements:[/b] No [b]Unobtainable/glitched achievements:[/b] No [b]Gamepad or mouse and keyboard:[/b] Mouse I have been saying for years that it is so weird how many Sudoku and Picross (Nonograms) puzzle games there are on Steam, but not that many Word Search games. And I understand that puzzle games where language has an important role are harder to make and maybe less attractive to people who don't speak the language the game is in, but with how many English-speaking people there are on Steam, there must be a market, right? I love Word Searches puzzles irl, but just like Picross games, sometimes coloring in the fields just feels like too much work, and that is where digital games do wonders, as that part is taken care of! I find it impressive that in Alphabetron, the puzzles are randomized. While the worlds for a specific puzzle are the same, the solutions are different, so if you want to you can replay the same puzzles and still have a challenge. I would love to see more words for each puzzle, but at the same time, I'm already glad we got a Word Search puzzle game. And one with nice achievements made by a developer who hunts achievements themselves. To unlock the last achievement for having all achievements, I had to replay a puzzle, but that is easily done with the first puzzle. You don't need an achievement guide; just play through all 50 puzzles, and after that, check the achievement list to see what you're missing. There is a high chance you already got the other achievements without actively trying to get them. I give Alphabetron 4 out of 5 stars. [code]Do you enjoy games that don't have missable achievements? Check out this list on my website: [url=https://www.missitheachievementhuntress.com/games-with-unmissable-achievements/]Missi the Achievement Huntress: Games without missable achievements[/url][/code]

Fun little word search game. I liked the choices of words / theme of the game. The music was catchy although it felt a bit repetitive after a while.

It’s a simple word-search game with the levels being random every time you load in. Just find the words displayed on the right in the scrambled mess and you’ll move on to the next level, with the board getting bigger and bigger after a couple of levels making it not necessarily more difficult but requiring more time and effort to actually find the words. I see nothing wrong with this game; it’s doing exactly as advertised and I can recommend it for that. Though I would suggest getting it during a sale. [u]Achievements:[/u] It has a total of 21 achievements and except 2 you can get each just by finishing all 50 levels. The other 2 just require clicking on an easter egg in the level select and quit out of a level. Very easy but slightly time-consuming completion.

Ok, first things first, the soundtrack did not need to go this hard. I was vibing out the whole time. It's a shame there's only a few total songs because they just loop. I can definitely see how folks may grow tired of them over time, even though they are pretty great tracks. Music aside, the actual game is...a word search. I mean, that shouldn't really come as a shock to anyone. It just is what it is, but hey it is good at that. If you have a vague understanding of the english language and/or basic pattern recognition, you'll do fine. Not all word searches work the same, though. This is one one where words [i]can[/i] slightly overlap and words can be read in [i]either direction[/i]; so, as an example, you can find "WORDSEARCH" written as "HCRAESDROW" horizontally, vertically, or diagonally. I think it adds a slight challenge...as much challenge as a word search can be, anyways. At any rate, this was a neat time. It's got a good soundtrack, a reasonable number of levels, a fair price (especially on sale), and some achievements. My only real critiques are that I wish there were more songs, and they did repeat a lot of words throughout the levels. If they want to make more of these games, I'd just bump up the track total and not repeat any words. Anyways, it was a nice, affordable time. I recommend picking this up if you're interested!

Alphabetron - review [u]Recommendation[/u]: A good, fun word search game with a fairly large set of puzzles that gradually increase in size. [u]Critique[/u]: Alphabetron presents you with a classic word search: a rectangle of seemingly-random letters, and a list of words that are hidden in that rectangle. Each word can be found as a straight line of sequential letters, either horizontally (forward or backward), vertically (down or up), and diagonally (reading up/down on a 45-degree angle). The word list is good; each puzzle has words fit to a specific theme, usually a genre of fiction: spies, science-fiction, cyberpunk, etc. Your job is to find those words in the rectangle. The way you "find" a word in a classic word search is by circling the word, but that's much too finicky to do with a mouse. So instead here you "find" a word by clicking and dragging a selection across the letters that make each word. The only frustration I had in the whole game - and this is very minor - is that selecting diagonals was a little error-prone: the selection often tried to select the next vertical or horizontal letter rather than the diagonal I was moving the mouse to select. In general, the puzzles are very easy for someone who is accustomed to word searches. Puzzles very rarely use the same letters in multiple words, which makes it a bit easier: each word almost never overlaps with another. The music in this game is really catchy and enjoyable; it nearly outshines the puzzles themselves. As you play the game, the word lists grow and the rectangles of letters also grow, which makes each puzzle slightly more difficult...which really lends a nice sense of progression as you complete each one. It never gets difficult, but it does have a nice curve of increasing complexity. For those who are seeking achievements, here is a secret if you're having a hard time with the one particular ("Easter Egg") achievement. [spoiler]For the longest time, I thought "egg" or some synonym of egg was hidden in the puzzles somewhere. I was disappointed when I finished the game and hadn't found egg. So I started back at puzzle 1 and played all the way through each puzzle again, carefully searching for E-G-G in any puzzle. Eventually I found it in the 38th puzzle - but the game did not recognize EGG as a word. This was not surprising, as EGG is not in any of the word lists; it was just a coincidence that those letters actually appeared in any puzzle. After finding EGG and not getting the achievement, [u]only then[/u] did it occur to me that I might not be looking for a word at all. So I looked at the various game screens and immediately saw that there is a graphic of an egg hidden in the title on one of the screens. Click that, and you've got the achievement![/spoiler]

Love this game.

8

Nice aesthetics but nothing more than a simple word search game. Words get repetitive and the game lacks any real sense of progression.