Thank you Lightwood Games for sending us a review code!

Crossovers by Powgi was originally released in 2019 for PS4 and Vita.  It was cross-buy and we were blessed with the ability to play it on both systems.  However, your progress is not linked via cloud save, so your progress is restricted by device.  Our review for it is here.  At the end of 2022, it released on Xbox and we can now play it on that system too!

For the reasonable asking price of $7.99, you get two hundred sets of puzzles to solve and at the end of each one of them is a joke or a pun that you can use on others for entertainment or punishment. One example is “I’ve gotten addicted to auctions after going once…going twice…”.   

The gameplay, visuals, and background music is the same.  If you already own it, there’s not much else to see or play.  Here’s our stream of the Xbox version including a few puzzle where I got stumped:

You can play any of the two hundred puzzles as they are all available from the beginning. Upon launching a puzzle, you’ll be greeted with two words that are connected by a missing letter. There are four letters to choose from to fill in the blank. The selected letter must make sense for both words. If you select an incorrect one, the game will strike it out for you; there doesn’t seem to be any penalty for incorrect answers. You’ll have to repeat this process a few times until you have the predetermined number of letters needed to unscramble the puzzle's theme/riddle.

Other than the riddle, you have no other lifelines for help. There is no hint system to give you a first letter or anything. Thankfully, I haven’t been stumped for too long, but I was stumped long enough to get an achievement. There are forty achievements available and you’ll earn one for each letter of the alphabet you’ll eventually use.

The clues are pretty clever and sometimes, I didn’t get them right away. One that stumped me briefly was “To be in doubt” - the answer for that one was the scrambled word, silent. An easier example for me was “Can be counted on” and the answer for the scrambled letters was: "fingers".

There’s not much to complain about morally. One of the scrambled words was spine and thankfully, the clue was pretty clear that it was back related.

The graphics are easy to read on the Xbox Series X, PS4, and Vita versions of the game. I preferred the mobility of the Vita and was happy with this game’s performance on it. The touch screen controls were easier on the Vita than using a PS4 or Xbox controller.

There’s not much variety in background music. The default song is peppy, but gets repetitive if you plan on solving many of these puzzles at once.

If you like crosswords, riddles, and cheesy jokes, you’ll definitely want to check out Crossovers by POWGI. My kids enjoyed helping me solve many of them while looking over my shoulders as I played. Even if it’s designed to be a single-player game, it can be multiplayer as well.