Pathwords

I've long been a fan of Binary Arts company, and when they changed the name to Think Fun, that didn't change anything....can anyone tell me why that happened???

Today I was in a local bookstore and came across a puzzlecalled Pathwords.  I've seen it before, but passed it up for one reason or another. Today, it was calling my name "Roxanne, Roxanne.  Buy me, buy me!"  So I did. I can't leave a puzzle crying out for me now can I?  That would just be cruel!

This puzzle is billed as "Word Search Meets Tetris and Gets Extreme!"  It was put out in 2010 and designed by Derrick Niederman. Boy am I late in getting this.  Typical though.  HK is always pretty slow when it comes to puzzle sales.  Well, if you don't count twisties that is.  :)

As always with this company, the design is fantastic. It's a storage container and puzzle all in one.  I really like that bit.  My house is tiny (700+/-ft.sq) so I don't have a lot of room to store boxes.  The Binary Arts (After what? 10 years?  I still don't think of them as Think Fun.  Why the block I wonder?) puzzles/games are great for saving me storage space because I can save a few precious inches by ditching the boxes.  That and the humidity here simply doesn't like cardboard.  I mean, have you ever seen walls sweat!  Mine do all the time in the spring and fall, and that is just terrible for boxes...come to think of it, it's not very good for wooden puzzles either.  I divert....

So I can pack this thing up and take it into work with me if I choose.  Or on one of those long testing days or....Well you get the idea.

How does it play?  The first few levels are pretty easy.  As with all of these, they get progressively more difficult as you go along.  The trick is to first find words that are real, then to see if any of the pieces will fit over the top of them.  The above photo is of the first challenge, and there are a couple of other real words in there, but they don't work with the pieces provided so starting over was in order.  This puzzle has 40 challenges in the book so it will keep me busy for a short while I would think...Or I can just add it to the stack on top of the wardrobes....