Last updated on December 14th, 2025 at 08:15 pm
Downwordly – Puzzle Game Review
Downwordly is a Puzzle/Education/Word game from Bird Cartel LLC, first launched in 4th June 2021.
It’s rated 4+ and currently has 744+ ratings on the App Store.
What Makes Downwordly Stand Out
Downwordly is a word building game that challenges you to make the most out of the letters you have. Not all letters you see are playable! Use your intellect to find the best word you can make while also planning for the future.
Play against your GameCenter friends in turn-based multiplayer!
Play solo with an endless stack of letters!
Try searching for words in Puzzle mode!
Work your way through a new set of 5 layers of tiles every day in the Daily Challenge!
See how you stack up against your friends and the world on the leaderboards.
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LAYER TWO
• Solo Versus – Test your skills against four different difficulties of computer opponents.
• 50 new Puzzles
• 8 new themes
• Customize your theme and app icon
• Compete on 2 new leaderboards
What's the longest word you can make?
This Puzzle game offers engaging gameplay and regular updates for mobile players.
Player Feedback
As a newer release, Downwordly is building its player community. Early feedback suggests .
Recent Updates & Development
Latest Update: 16th March 2023
Recent improvements include:
Various bug fixes.
Download & Availability
Downwordly is available through the official App Store for iOS devices.
Requirements: Requires iPhone 5s / iPad Air / iPad Air (Cellular) / iPad Mini 2 (Retina) / iPad Mini 2 (Retina, Cellular) / iPhone 6 / iPhone 6 Plus / iPad Air 2 / iPad Air 2 (Cellular) / iPad Mini 3 or later.
Compatible with iPhone and iPad devices.
Player Experience Highlights
Community Insight:
These games are so fun and 100% private no data collected. Our kind of app! Thank you.
Unique in its own way. We especially like to play the Solo Mode against the CPU opponents which was worth paying for. Visuals and background soundtrack is a nice addition to the game.
An amazing game, we dont know why.. But we prefer this one over well word. We purchased both, but this one hits better for us. The expertly puzzle setup. This is our new favorite word spelling game. Ive played them all: Word Knot Well Word Word Tower Type Shift Picto Words Spell word Words with Friends Up Spell Wordly None in the list, hit us like Down Worldly. This sophisticated and elegant game. We will buy any future add ons. We only wish had Auto orientation for iPad Dark theme for night in bed sessions Other than that, this literally a masterpiece in game design, UX design and UI design. Immaculately done.
Been playing for quite a while and its always challenging. Love it.
Loving puzzle mode and that its never as easy as we think, so addictive if you are into words. Buy all of the games from the developer, you wont regret it.
Love the game, but as of recent, it crashes regularly when offline/airplane mode. Was playing on a flight.
Added a friend and they dont show up on the list to start a new game.
Word Search is a game by doing straight lines and the game has categories and 1000000000+ themes but download this game because its better than that game.
We like this game and am especially impressed there's no ads. Kudos to the dev. We feel more open to support the app and offer feedback. Some things that can be improved are: if you get stuck on a daily challenge there doesnt seem to be a way to restart. We also forget what the bookmark feature does or how to use it after initial note. Maybe a include OK and Dont show again options? Also, some kind of reinforcement/acknowledgment of finding a longer word would be nice and feels expected, but not a big deal. Thanks.
Im absolutely in love with this word game. Found it by chance in the App Store. Definitely lucked out. Its wonderfully challenging and relaxing at the same time. Multiple modes of gameplay. You can play solo or against a friend. Its pleasing to the eye as well, with soft colors and smooth fluid animation. Our new happy obsession :).
Ive looking high and low for any make your own word game! We love Alphabetty but it gets impossible to do without spending money and Im not doing that! This game is SO relaxing!! Our only problem. In Endless we get all the way to a depth of about 24, it would drop letters for the next depth on every level while we still have plenty of letters to work with but then it would stop! It would just end! We started over in depth 1, only got to depth 3 got down to only three letters that wouldnt go together so it just stopped, ended! Why will it not drop more letters?? Getting down to three letters is NOT endless play.
Easy to learn, easy to challenge yourself to improve. Great options for playing the endless game, puzzles, daily challenge. Two improvements Id like to see (unless we have missed them being there already) are a time-out feature that results in a multiplayer game ending after one player has not played a move for a certain number of days (10?). Its not fair that if we end a game with someone because they havent played in days, they win and we lose. Also, Id love to see a leaderboard for the most endless game points (not just the best endless word or deepest depth) – lets reward risk-taking for the maximum number of points.
Our favorite is the PUZZLE. You have to find the words in a specific order and choose a letter that reveals a letter underneath it that completes the next word. If you didnt choose correctly you have to undo that word and find the right letter. Hard to understand unless youve played the game. If you want a challenge this is a good one. We often play for hours at a time. If you like Word games that will challenge you, you will love this one.
This game is great. We love it and have been thinking laying nonstop since downloading it. The only thing that would make it better is a more direct way to switch between multiple multiplayer games. Currently you have to Save & Quit and then go back in to multiplayer to switch to another game. You should be able to simply back out to the multiplayer menu and switch between each match you have going on.
Im a avid word game player. This is one of the more unique and challenging ones and we have come to really enjoy it. We came across it about 2 weeks ago, and we have already completed both sets of puzzlesthe first free one and the 2nd pay one. However, there arent any more puzzles to play. It just resets to puzzle set 1. Am we overlooking someone or are there only two puzzle packs/levels? If so, when will new puzzles be coming out.
We like this game, however after traversing the first 6-7 levels of the "puzzles" section we came across the "fruits" level. It cannot be solved. We have tried 100 different ways. There are not enough "w's" to solve both "watermelon" and "kiwi". This is clearly a glitch in the game. If the developers want to help us with our quandary we would welcome their feedback. Until then, it seems this game is broken.
Not gonna lie the one reason we wanted to give you guys the premium price beyond supporting your work was to play this game multiplayer because the single player was just so peaceful and calming and fun and it looked really pretty. We dont really know what you should do to correct it but yall messed up the multiplayer. For one through game Center, those matchmakings have never been good, but second allowing players too much time giving people ample time to just look up the biggest word they could find in their grouping of letters and it seems like most everybodys doing it. There are always gonna be people smarter than us and Im fine with that But it should still be a fair game. As far as the single player experience we find it quite peaceful and fun, maybe some more backgrounds or some thing different music But overall a good game. Also maybe difficulty modes for solo verses would be nice.
We cannot make it past the second part of the tutorial- so confusing and no help within the app to give suggestions. Was really excited to play this game but its impossible to make it past the tutorial it seems.
To say Im an avid Downwordly fan is an understatement. Im hooked. Its an intriguing game unlike any others Ive played, and improving it will make it more popular. First and foremost, you told another reviewer that you could add an Endless mode all time high score. PLEASE do so! We play to maximize our score each round because its more fun. As a consequence our current score in Endless mode is over a million. We could have more safely reached our current depth by playing small safe low scoring words but that would be boringly repetitive. Game players are competitive – its what keeps us coming back. We need this metric so add the high score PLEASE! Second, in your tutorial no mention is made of the Shiny Tiles – one even appears in your tutorial with NO explanation. Fix this PLEASE! More people will be hooked if they understand whats going on. Third, your hint button CHEATS! Instead of selecting each letter of a word, it occasionally counts the shiny letter tiles Twice which raises the score a lot. Ive emailed you about this without a response, but Ive grown to like the cheat! – its an added thrill when we get a huge score (our best so far is 5,376). (Heres a suggestion: why not make this doubling an official part of the game – Either state that the Shiny tiles can double serendipitously using the hint button, or MUCH better, make them always be capable of doubling when We play them, as well as when we use the hint button. Fourth, all our metrics appear on our iPhone as well as our iPad, but our score doesnt carry over to our iPhone. Please correct this. And Lastly, Ive finally figured out the way the scoring works, shiny tile and word length multipliers – why not let everyone in on it in an advanced tutorial. Downwordly could have a bigger, more long lasting following this way. Youve been responsive in the past, and we hope youll consider making Downwordly even better.
We want to try out this game but we cant seem to figure out how to get the words to clear. We got past hello for the first one but cant get howdy to clear. Ill tap and the letter will un-highlight. But when we tap and hold nothing happens. Is there some extra trick to it? Edit: you have to click the word at the bottom and NOT click and hold the blocks. Maybe make that direction clearer.
Its honestly a good game, but the glitch is ruining it for us. When playing puzzle mode, if you hit the back button enough times, a purchase extension pops up and doesnt go away. Even has the option to click main menu, but it doesnt work, so you have to quit out of the app and go back in. Pretty annoying.
Latest version buggy if you hit the rewind arrow to remove your last move. It gets stuck and you cant hit return to game. LOVE the game but its annoying to have to close the app and restart.
Cant get past first screen with word hello.
OMG Im so glad we found this game! The developer did absolutely everything right here. And no, we dont know them, so this is legit. The concept is unique and clever. We love endless mode especially; it can be as relaxing or strategic as you feel at the time. And we love that you can always save progress, that makes us want to play more often because we can play during a short break here and there. Ive tried many word games and have either gotten frustrated or bored with them. But this one is different, its keeping us engaged. It will stay on our phone. We love the design, and the UI is great. Its good on battery too (especially if you turn off sounds, haptic, etc.). We also super appreciate the fair monetizing; there are no ads, and the IAP is purely optional. Only one suggestion: for those like us who only intend to play solo (and therefore wont buy the unlimited multiplayer upgrade), Id like a way to tip you to support you. Maybe offer other optional IAP, such as different color palates (Id prefer more muted colors) for solo players or something, or skins or whatever. Thank you for this game, we hope its successful for you! All other word games can go to oops, we ran out of letters. ;-).
We love this word game! We need more puzzles.
Downwordly is a simple word game that actively challenges your abilities in projection, logic, and spelling to make for a unique user experience. There are four different types of play styles that you can enjoy. Endless allows you to create as many words as you can with a limited number of layers that grows as you take away letters, layer by layer. Puzzle allows you to enjoy an unparalleled experience in the world of word search games. Daily Challenges allows you to test out your abilities in creating words in a similar style to the Endless game mode, while only having a set of 5 layers. These layers reset daily for an exciting challenge each and every day. Multiplayer allows you to play with friends using Game Center and mechanics similar to the Endless game mode. In addition to a great game complete with exciting game modes, Downwordly does not collect any personally identifiable data and it does not display ads, so you can enjoy your game without being tracked or hit with an annoying pop-up ad. Overall, a fantastic game that can easily get you addicted with its fun game modes, and its many challenging Game Center Achievements.
So believe us when we say this game is really good!! We love word games and this one is fun and inventive. We particularly enjoy the puzzles! Well done, devs.
Downwordly is such a clever game! Its sort of a mix between single-player Scrabble and Mahjong. The daily puzzle is our favorite and we play it everyday. We also enjoy endless mode and puzzle mode. Puzzle mode can be a nice challenge and endless mode is a relaxing practice of trying to remember all the helpful Scrabble words. We highly recommend Downwordly for those who enjoy word or puzzle games.
We actually love this game. We do enjoy playing word games a lot and have tried plenty of them. This one really peaked our interests. Although we beat the puzzle mode and am hopeful that youll come up with more puzzles to add.
It could be really helpful to have a hints option in the puzzle section. Its frustrating when it seems like the puzzle Im stuck on doesnt even have the right amount of tiles.
We have tried several of your versions of this game, and they are all great. We ended up with multiplayer plus. And we really enjoy this version of your game. We have got about 10 people we have started games with . We have a couple of issues but Im not sure if its us, or the game. When we go into multiplayer plus, it shows all the games in Progress. At the top of the screen it shows the (our turn) first. Then it shows all the games that are (their turn). But we are finding out that it is really our turn, that is under their turn portion. Is that a glitch in the system, is there a bug that needs to be fixed? Most games have notifications when its your turn, as yours does. But we also like to have a number on the icon, to also show us it is our turn. But we see you do not have that feature. Is that something you can look into.
We really dig this game. We like how it comes down to revealing the right letters and putting together the longest words rather than using the highest-value rare letters in specific spots like in Scrabble imitators. It feels more of an achievement to drop words like influenza and preposterous. We feel the most engagement comes out of the multiplayer mode, but we think the + option is a reasonable price but must-buy considering a majority of players just refuse to do their turn. Ive also had a few instances where the game would end and say that we quit despite us being well ahead and it currently being an hour or so into the opponents turn just a minor bug we think; maybe because they uninstalled the app or something? Despite the need to have a dozen games going for one to get anywhere, Im hooked.
When we first downloaded it, it wouldnt go past the first HELLO page. After we restarted our phone, it started working.
Just curious why so many legit words are not in the game? We run into this at least once every time we play.
Sooo many bugs in multiplayer. It always tells us we have 2 games but it doesnt allow us to quit or delete one, it just comes back. We can reset multiplayer and after like the 5th reset it lets us play. Then when the game is over, we have to go through it all over again.
We love the concept of this game and had no issues with crashing or ads or anything. However, the visuals are so uncomfortable to look at, even for a young person with normal vision! Lots of clashing colors and confusing depth perception adds challenge but it was so displeasing to our eyes that we had to stop using the app even though we loved the game.
We just downloaded this game about an hour ago and have encountered the same bug two times already so Im deleting for now until future updates come out. When Im playing and we accidentally click on a letter that wouldnt work in a word – like WHL then the game board starts scrambling the letters around really fast and we were not able to get it to stop by either clearing the word or saving game and going back in. We had to close the app and restart. It happened in endless mode and puzzle mode.
We beat the dog puzzle, the next one was countries. When we goth that puzzle, the dog words were still visible on top of the countries. We restarted the app, now it wants us to make the dog words again, but the countries letters are showing on the board. Now we cant continue the game. Uninstalled. Thanks but, we want to play the game not troubleshoot issues.
Im hooked on the puzzles and we get this feeling of victory every time we solve one. We often excitedly say out loud Yes, we did it!! When we finally figure it out, today we did that in the lobby of our dentists office, and we startled the receptionist.
This game is fun and its even more fun when you play the game with people that you know.
The game was fun until we played multiplayer. The person we were playing with isnt taking his turn. So for 3 days, we havent been able to play with our friends because this game only allows one multiplayer game at one time, unless you pay for their multiplayer+.
We love how this game looks, feels, etc. We are unfortunately starting to have our game crash whenever we start playing a game now. It wasnt like this before, and we dont know if its on our end; this is the only app that has crashed on us though so we dont know.
So far the game is a lot fun. Playing endless mode is relaxing. But how is January not a word? You allow cuss words but not a month? It seems like you would just copy and paste your allowed words in your programming from the dictionary right but apparently not.
The game is great, like a mix of Scrabble and Mahjong. Our problem with it is that theres no leaderboard for endless points, which is baffling. Theres not even a local high score that you can view. Whats the point of earning points in endless mode without this feature.
As someone who rarely plays games and quickly loses interest in most games, we had about given up on finding the game for us. With a lifelong love of Scrabble, we were excited to give Downwordly a try, and Im so glad we did! Downwordly is a word game unlike any other we have tried. We love that it has multiple modes: Multiplayer for some friendly competition with your Game Center friends, Puzzle to solve themed puzzles, Endless to test your ability to keep your board going for as long as possible, and the Daily Challenge to try to maximize your points with each daily board. We have played Downwordly every day since we found it! Not only have we learned new words, but the longer we play, the more techniques we learn for maximizing points, strategically revealing tiles, and using shiny tiles to their full potential. Do yourself a favor and try Downwordly asap.
A great new game for word game fans! It is very versatile with competitive, endless, and puzzle modes. It has great 3D aesthetic that we find relaxing and satisfying! Highly recommend.
This is a super fun game to play and adds a new challenge to the more traditional word games. Five stars.
We like the combination of mahjong and word games.
User feedback from Apple App Store
App Details
- Version: 2.4
- Size: 89.69 MB
- iOS: 12.0 or later
- Languages: EN
- Content Advisory:
- Developer: Bird Cartel LLC
Last updated: 16th March 2023 | Genre: Puzzle, Education | Developer: Bird Cartel LLC