If you love letters and you love making words, then there’s a new game you need to try out. Sort of a mashup of Candy Crush and Word building games, Candy Words will have you racing against the timer to place letters in their correct place so as to create a provided list of words. The ordering is always right to left and top to bottom. You’ll start with three words, then work your way up to more. In the lower levels, the words will be no more than 4 characters.

What’s neat about this game is that you can easily work your way up the ranks and it gives you plenty of time to do so, at least initially. When you first start playing you get 90 seconds to create the provided list of words. The words are easy and it’s easy to find the letters you need in the matrix. All you have to do is tap on the two tiles that need to be swapped to arrange the letters in the way you need to build the words.

Now, as this sound easy initially, you will find, as you move on through the levels, that the arrangement is not so straightforward. This happens when one letter is need to build more than one word. That’s when the game gets interesting and you have to use some judgement on how you want to arrange your words in the matrix. The wrong ordering will leave you with the last word uncreated and the puzzle lost.

Should you complete the creation of all the words and in a sufficient amount of time, you will get three stars which will earn you coins. If you take longer, you get just two coins and take too long, you’ll get one coin. Any amount of coins is good, as long as you finish the puzzle, however, note that if you don’t build up enough coins, you will deplete them with each game, leaving you with the option to either purchase coins or to view ads in order to continue playing. I chose to watch the ads, because I was not about to spend real money to play this game, but the option is all yours.

I really got a kick out of playing Candy Words, and I can see this being a great tool for youngsters to practice spelling and reading. It’s a game that really forces you to know your letters and see how to best arrange them in a timely fashion so you can create the full list in the least amount of time. The number of steps is takes to make the words is unlimited, but you don’t want to take too much time.

What would be nice is to get some hints or even a tutorial on how to play. I just had to jump right in, not knowing that you had to swap the letter tiles. I spent a few seconds trying to swipe and map out the words, which didn’t work!

At any rate, Candy Words is a ton of fun for anyone of any age. The words are simple, family friendly and easy to build. A great tool for learners of all ages and a fun game to keep you entertained.