Frustrating New Word Game in Apple News+ Falls Flat Despite Premium Price
-
Quartiles is a new hidden word game in the latest iOS 17.5 beta for Apple News+ subscribers, featuring word snippets to match into longer words
-
The game has a very steep learning curve and can be extremely frustrating to play, even for seasoned word game players
-
Quartiles feels nearly impossible to make meaningful progress on, with too many letter tile combinations to parse and no way to manipulate or segment the letters
-
The game lacks mechanics that introduce concepts gradually or give a sense of progression, unlike well-designed puzzle games
-
Access to Quartiles requires an Apple News+ subscription, but the author argues the money is better spent on almost any other puzzle game with more thoughtful design