Thank you Lightwood Games for sending us a review code!

Roundout is a combination of the crossword puzzles and anagram games commonly found in the puzzle sections of newspapers. We reviewed LIghtwood Game's take on the anagram genre, Word Wheel, on the Nintendo Switch in 2019. The premise behind Word Wheel is to come up with as many words as possible using each of the eight letters in the wheel no more than once.

Crossword puzzles are typically themed and you get clues for the words needed to fill in the spaces. In this title, your only hints are the eight letters you have to work with. Some puzzles have a three letter minimum for words and others require at least four.

Coming up with every possible word combination is quite challenging. I was expanding my vocabulary while playing this game. Thankfully, there is a button to get hints in the form of randomly placed letters. There is a limit of how many helping letters you get so it can’t be abused.

There are one hundred and twenty puzzles in total and you can close out and resume from where you left off if you need to take a break. Upon completing a puzzle you’ll be treated to a bad joke or pun.

We normally don’t receive codes for multiple gaming systems, but with this review we did and I’m thankful for that. For some reason during the livestream of the Xbox version I was not getting credit for correct word submissions. The developer has been made aware of this issue and is investigating it. I’m happy to report that the Switch version doesn’t seem to have this issue.

The graphics are clean and looked good and ran smoothly on both my Switch and Xbox Series X. You can toggle between a light and dark mode in the game menu.

Sound wise this game’s music is on par with other titles from Lightwood Games. The music is peppy but repetitive and can be disabled if desired.

Roundout is family-friendly and can be enjoyed by puzzle lovers of all ages. If you do input naughty words, they will be counted as bonus words and not displayed as part of the puzzle. They will still show up as the last word entered though.

The Xbox version of the game has achievements for solving puzzles, submitting bonus words, and retying the same words numerous times. I would assume the PlayStation 4 version has similar trophies available.

If you enjoyed Word Wheel or like crossword puzzles, Roundout is worth checking out. Until the Xbox version gets patched, I recommend sticking with the Switch version in the meantime. This is a great pick up and play title that can be enjoyed on the go.