The puzzles in Knotwords look a lot like crosswords, but the clue list is gone. Instead, the board is divided into sections and tells you exactly which letters must fit into each area. Your goal is to fit all the letters in there as needed, while still correctly spelling the top and bottom of the word.
At its most basic, a board will give you two adjacent two-letter segments. One needs to contain the letters A and E, the other needs to contain the letters S and R. Since the two parts form a line, they need to form a word together. So in this case, you know that the letters are in the order of EARS, not AESR. Since the second is not a word, I checked.
Once the segments are not just two letters, but three, four, or five letters, and are in a crossword-like shape, meaning the letters are spread over two or more words, the puzzle will obviously become more complicated. There’s a lot of nice UI design that helps make it manageable as the puzzle gets bigger, like the on-screen keyboard highlighting the only letters needed in the selected section.
Knotwords is the work of Zach Gage and Jack Schlesinger. Gage often makes fun puzzle games, including standard twists like chess and Sudoku, some of which he created with Schlesinger. Gage is also the designer of the spaceship crisis simulation Tharsis.
Can I have the cheek to say that Knotwords is Wordle-esque and fits my obsession with everything inspired by browser word games? It does have new everyday puzzles, but other than that, I don’t think Knotwords has much in common with Wordle-likes, as it’s a format that goes beyond using the apparent similarity of words.
You can now buy Knotwords from Steam for £8.36/€9/$9 with a 10% launch discount.