Philipp Stollenmayer (Kamibox) has become quite a staple in the mobile puzzle gaming circles. With hits like Song of Bloom and supertype, the German designer has won an Apple Design Award for his work on the former, a quirky, abstract puzzler. With Sticky Terms, you are tasked with rotating disparate piece and placing them to form words.
Sticky Terms is a casual puzzle game by developer Philipp Stollenmayer, bringing his brand of minimalist, Dali-esque puzzles to the world of untranslatable words. With over 50 categories of words to delve into, you must figure out how to “stick” parts of letters together to form the final word.
Sticky Terms is simple — drag the disparate bits of letters with your finger, assembling them like an abstract jigsaw to form words. Many of the words have letters outside the English alphabet — those with acute accents (the French “é”), umlauts (German/Scandinavian “ä, ö, ü”), Latin graphemes (“œ”), and so much more. They start out as simply far flung jigsaw puzzle pieces, but morph into increasingly difficult, more complex puzzles.
Sticky Terms is a simple, colourful “put the pieces together” puzzler which allows for experimentation. With satisfying “pop” and “snap” sound effects as elements separate and join together, players will find these sound effects of success extremely satisfying. Once completed, a drum roll introduces the word's definition on screen — educating players on the various intricacies of each word and their origins. Learning things while having fun is more likely than you think!
This was quite the serotonin-inducing experience for me that I just kept going. The share option for each completed individual entry brings it to the forefront of communicability with the likes of Wordle. Show your friends the cool new words that you’ve learnt, and get them to play it too!
What’s more is the artful arrangement of letter parts, and complimentary colours that make them pop against a simple, plain background. A colourblind setting is available as well, making this game very accessible to audiences.
Though short games provide a fun experience regardless, as someone who is fond of languages as a whole, this game leaves me hungry for more. I was able to complete this in under 20 hours. The satisfaction of going through it a second time doesn’t quite have the “oomph” factor, especially if the player has memorised the patterns like I have.
Having to watch an ad to unlock each category is a small gripe and doesn’t detract from the experience one bit. One can unlock the game’s ad-free mode on iOS via entering a code from his other titles see/saw or supertype. Unfortunately, Android users will have to wait it out due to technical issues.
With a glossary for language nerds like myself, and a relaxing selection of “you did it” sounds — Sticky Terms is a game that is worth a go on the go.
See what I just did?
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