Knotwords is a sudoku-infused fix for Wordle lovers

polygon.com:

Game designer and conceptual artist Zach Gage loves nothing more than fiddling around with, or trying to optimize, the oldest, most popular, and most ubiquitous games in the world. Previous targets of his tinkering include solitaire, chess, pool, and sudoku. Now he and his co-developer Jack Schlesinger are back, and this time they’re tackling crossword puzzles.

Knotwords— which is out now on Android, iOS, Mac, and Windows PC — is a crossword for people who don’t like solving clues, cryptic or otherwise. In fact, it’s a mash-up of crosswords and killer sudoku. Killer sudoku, and the similar math game KenKen, guide players by boxing out portions of the grid and indicating what the sum of the numbers contained within each “cage” should be. Knotwords uses similar cages and tells you what the letters within each cage are, but not where to place them.

In crosswords, you use a clue to guess a word, then combine clues and placed letters to fill out the rest of the puzzle in a snowball of erudition. In Knotwords, you are assembling words from their raw materials, in a process not entirely dissimilar from the way you narrow down your options after the first guess or two in Wordle.

Playing Knotwords does depend on a decent grounding in vocabulary and the arcane rules and tendencies of English spelling, as Wordle does. But less so. These are really just the foundation for what becomes a pure game of logic and tactics. The way to break into a puzzle is usually via two- or three-letter words, where options are limited. Further solutions will start to cascade from there. If you ever do get stuck, you can ask for a hint, which gives you a dictionary definition for a word you’re stumped on. It’s odd how much this feels like cheating,