Like everyone else, I wanted to play Animal Crossing: New Horizonsduring social distancing. Unfortunately, this wasn't in the cards for me: The Nintendo Switch and Switch Lite are pretty much sold out, and I cannot afford to pay $800 for one on eBay. (This is maybe not the wisest time to become a gamer from scratch.)

So my isolation game of choice ended up being a little different. It's a word puzzle game on my phone that is not new, features zero adorable characters, and is not particularly collaborative. In fact, it is a little boring. It's also doing wonders for my mental health right now.

Wordscapes, which is available for iOS and Android, is kind of like a word search-crossword puzzle hybrid. (Forgive me for explaining the game as if it's new; again, it is several years old.) Each round, you're given a bank of letters, which you must then use to make words that fit into an empty crossword. If you get stuck, you can use the "coins" you win after completing levels to buy hints or freebie letters. After you complete all the puzzles in a level, you're rewarded with a pleasant new background for gameplay — perhaps a nice waterfall or a stately mountain range.

The background elevator music is also lovely.

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For me, the game's main draw is that it's simultaneously rewarding and incredibly low-stakes. Some puzzles are really difficult, but it's not really possible to lose. Plus, the game isn't timed, which means it's super low-stress. If you want to take a break, you can close the app and resume your level later at the same place. There are no consequences for pausing.

Still, it feels great to complete a puzzle — similar to the thrill of completing a New York Timesmini crossword — and you can feel that feeling as many times in a row as you want. And yes, there's a congratulatory sound effect.

It's simultaneously rewarding and low-stakes.

Wordscapes is not a collaborative game. You can't even communicate with other players inside the app. That doesn't mean you can play it socially, though, at least with the other people you're in isolation with. My family, four members of which I am holed up with right now, will often pass our phones to each other silently, hoping someone else can figure out the word that's been stumping us for hours. This doesn't always involve a lot of talking (sometimes we just say "it was [the answer]? oh") but when we figure out a word together it's a nice moment nonetheless.

Since social distancing began, there's been a near-constant discourse online about what we should be doing if we're lucky enough to practice isolation. I know I shouldn't feel pressured to write King Lear or organize my entire apartment, but what if I just want to feel like I'm doing something, exercising just a tiny crumb of my brain? Wordscapes is great for that — it's a way to keep your mind on something vaguely academic without feeling the stress of a time crunch or a project with an endpoint. Because Wordscapes has no endpoint. It just keeps going and going forever.

OK, fine, it has 3700 levels. But I'm only on 257, so it is essentially infinite to me.

TopicsCOVID-19