TL;DR – A genuinely delightful word game that charms while presenting you with a fascinating challenge that I am driven to master.

Disclosure – I paid for this game.

Gubbins Review –

We live in the post-Wordle era, where we ditched the crossword goodbye and devilled into six letters that gave us grief for months. Once it and its many different variations concurred on the internet, I wondered who would be the first video game company to capture that vibe of loving words and bring it into an interactive experience. Today, we look at a small Australian company who have not only done this but also charmed me entirely in the process.

So to set the scene, Gubbins in a puzzle game where you are given a bunch of discordant letters at the bottom of the screen and a grid above, and you get points for how many words you can create before the black FIN appears. You get bonuses for chains of words, and some power-ups and traps can make placing the words difficult.

The first strength of this game is just how easy it is to control. As long as you don’t have big thumbs like me, it is easy to drop and place the letters where you want them and shift them from horizontal to vertical. You can seriously play this with one hand as you hold onto a handrail on the train to work. It is that ease of control that sucks you into the game because it is pretty simple on the surface, well, until you start chasing that high score.

There are many puzzle games out there, but where Gubbins stands out is in its presentation. You are charmed from the moment you open the app and get the calm, slightly jazzy piano music luring you into having just one more round. While this is happening, these little pals will pop by and be friendly or cause chaos. The design on the Gubbins is just stunning like they were out of a fever dream, but you love instead of violence.

My one concern is how much longevity this game will have for me. Now, I have already more than gotten my money’s worth out of this game; however, I can burn hard into these before dropping off quickly. I think the daily challenges will help here, as will trying to get that high score. But one clever thing the developers did was to create this postcard function so that you can commemorate a spectacular game. Besides being a delight, it adds that extra sticking power.

In the end, do we recommend Gubbins? Absolutely. I have had an absolute blast with this game. It has an easy entry point but a hard ceiling to master. It is a delight in its presentation, and I could spend more time in this world.      

By Brian MacNamara: You can follow Brian on Twitter Here, when he’s not chatting about Movies and TV, he’ll be talking about International Relations, or the Solar System.

Have you played Gubbins?, let us know what you thought in the comments below, feel free to share this review on any of the social medias and you can follow us Here. Check out all our past reviews and articles Here, and have a happy day. 

Credits – All images were created by the staff of Gubbins
Creative Director – Jessica Shipard
Game Director – Darcy Smith
Composition & Sound Design – Katarzyna Wiktorski
Illustrator – Zac Fay
Lead Programmer – Georgia Kriss
Senior Programmer – Ryan Cooper & Adam Scoble
Music – Katarzyna Wiktorski
Developer – Studio Folly
Publisher – Studio Folly