Bonza Word Puzzle Reviews

DO NOT UPDATE!

This game has been suffering from neglect for quite a while. The latest update seems like an attempt to squeeze out money with no investment.

All new content has been supplied by customers for several years now and with the update, the developers would like for you to pay them for this content by showing you ads for each customer-created puzzle you solve, or paying them directly to opt out of the ads. Some of us paid for this game years ago and now we should pay the developer again for doing nothing? No thank you!

Further, nearly all of the customer-created puzzles fall into the same overused and tired categories. Let me save you the exasperation and clue you in before you pay for the repetition and very annoying ads. These are the puzzle themes you can expect to solve everyday in BonzaWordPuzzle:
- Chemical elements
- Colours/colors
- Places (Cities/Countries)
- Animals
- Plants
- Food
- Sports
- Movies and music
- Lists of famous men (sometimes with a token women)

If you enjoy repeatedly going through these topics with the same words all the time and watching ridiculous ads to do so, then this is BonzaWordPuzzle for you!

Update: After years of playing Bonza and Bonza Planet, I have thrown in the towel. Nothing but repetitive crowd sourced puzzles and blaring sound on ads. Even when I cut the sound in BonzaWordPuzzle and mute the sound on my device it somehow breaks through. That is so disrespectful of users and a terrible marketing strategy. Despite having accumulated over 23,000 coins in Bonza and 22,000 coins in Bonza Planet I have deleted both apps.

*****
I have been playing Bonza and Bonza Planet since their inception and have bought every puzzle pack available. They used to be my favorite games. The original packs were fun and a great way to get the grey matter firing in the morning. The problem is that there have been no new puzzle packs for sale for years. The only puzzles available are the daily puzzles which are 100 percent crowd sourced, very limited in scope and extremely repetitive. It’s a constant litany of: colors, Australian animals, makes of cars, breakfast items etc. It’s rare to find something that is thought provoking or challenging. Really good word puzzles mature and grow. This one is dying from neglect. I am truly disappointed.

I had the luxury of playing this game for YEARS, since I was in high school! (Almost ten years now) and I have had periods where I don’t play as much, but recently I’ve been playing before bed to help relieve some anxiety I’ve been feeling. I had never updated the game since I got it (I don’t like to update things unless it’s absolutely necessary) and then I was stuck on a puzzle and tried to do my usual “watch ad for free hint” but no matter what it would not play an ad and wouldn’t give me the hint. So I decided to update BonzaWordPuzzle not knowing all of this ad stuff happened. I can’t play a SINGLE level without seeing an ad. All the levels are made available to you (before you had to earn them with coins) so the coins they are begging you to buy don’t even matter! Every time I open BonzaWordPuzzle I’m bombarded with a pop up to buy things. It’s ridiculous! Obviously the game has no interest in being usable and only cares about money. So beyond disappointed. I’m thinking of deleting this game despite how much I’ve loved it over the years. Too many ads and the fact that every level is now available to me instead of having to earn it takes away the play value for me. Plus, if you don’t need coins to unlock levels, what do you need them for?? Scammers!! I’m so sad :(((

The puzzle interface is new and addicting, and for the most part is done well. However I have two complaints. Once you get past the free levels BonzaWordPuzzle charges you for each pack. A pack only gets you so far, and if you want to keep playing you will pay for it - a lot more than you expected, and a lot more than the puzzles are worth. The game feels too much like a greedy scam, and it's off-putting. My second complaint is a related one; namely that many of the puzzles are far too easy, and some are quite brief - my 4-year-old could have come up with them. In some cases they only contain three words. Especially I f I am paying for a puzzle pack, I don't want to get garbage in exchange.

The game is medium-fun, but it should have been sold at $1.99 - for all the content. I am disillusioned and disappointed in the New York Times for this.

Lots of fun and a different take on crossword puzzles, I found this game addictive enough to blaze through all the free content in under a week.

Now I can only do a couple ( literally 2 ) free daily shuffles each day while I slowly acquire points to spend on puzzle packs, or buy the packs at a dollar a piece. Problem is the packs are not very large and playing through them would get expensive quick. But maybe I am just cheap.

But what bothers me more than the rest of that is how community content is handled. Free daily shovels all seem to be made up of randomly selected community contributed puzzles. Furthermore, these puzzles can be rated upon completion, and I am guessing the higher rated puzzles are used more often. The problem is that the puzzles you create don’t seem to link back to your account and don’t earn any kind of reward for being highly rated. I would love to be able to earn credits towards other puzzle packs for writing good content, and that seems more than fair given how much user retention relies upon this community generated content.

I like this game. It's well designed, has no annoying pop ups or ads that intrude on your play. I even like the music, which is more than I can say about any other game I've ever played. The game itself is basic but can be challenging as well.

It had only one flaw, but it's a big one. I've played this game for many hours, but I'm about ready to throw my phone across the room because the background moves the same way the pieces move. What I mean is that you use one finger to move the (teeny tiny, on a phone screen) word fragments around, but the whole screen also moves with only one finger. So when you mean to reach for a word, you often end up moving the whole board. It's maddening and entirely unnecessary. Simply make the background adjustable with two fingers rather than one. I mean, who thought this was a good design?

Please fix this intensely irritating flaw.

When the latest update came out for Bonza! Planet I was hoping the developers would see that it was a wrong direction to take. However, they unfortunately didn’t and have now instituted the same update here on the original Bonza! I don’t want to see a screen every time I use BonzaWordPuzzle that tells me I can pay money to remove the ads. Until this, I was fine to watch an ad or two to play additional games. Now, as a form of protest, I won’t watch one single ad. As soon as the initial game is over, I close BonzaWordPuzzle . As I said, I used to get them some money by watching one or two ads per day. Now they get nothing from me. Don’t be greedy. Take the money you get from people watching the ads and be happy about it. Okay, yeah, somewhere in the settings, feel free to offer and ad-free game, but don’t make me look at it every time I go to play.

So I’ve been playing a couple of weeks now and I have some opinions. First, by and large, it’s a solid word puzzle game with a good premise and decent execution. The UI could use a little bit of fine tuning, especially on phone screens where the limited space makes accurate selecting of pieces a bit too much trial and error. But that’s whatever. Lots of puzzle games suffer a bit on phone screens. There are two areas, however, that impact the fun of the game. 1. The random nature of the daily puzzle is suboptimal. Frankly, combining the daily puzzle with the user submitted puzzles is a bad idea. The daily puzzle should be the central draw to bring players into the game each day. Therefore they need to be good. As is? Sometimes there’re good, sometimes they’re not. They either need to have better curation or they need to be made by the devs, not farmed out to the players. 2. The puzzle should be making words to fit the category NOT trying to figure out the category. I’ve gotten stuck several times. If I’m struggling because I can’t figure out how the pieces apply to the category, that’s fine. In those cases it’s me playing (and failing) at the game I opted into. But when I struggle because the category is hidden and nothing is fitting together, it feels like a cheap trick. It doesn’t feel good. That’s not the point of the puzzle. But hey, even with those issues I’m still playing.

I truly enjoy this game. It can be a challenge while still remaining fun.
However…
While the daily puzzles continue to be clever, some of the others not so much. Many of those submitted by players are redundant. So much so that one ingenious person created a puzzle addressing that very issue of repetition. Apparently, there is no oversight on acceptance of topics.

Even worse are the puzzles I buy made by so-called professionals. While we are able to rate those submitted by amateurs, the same option is not available for the so-called pros. They tend to be short and incredibly easy. I’d love to know the credentials that got them the gig. It certainly isn’t imagination or effort. Please give us the option to rate those so we can weed out the creators that are just wasting our time.

I’ve been playing this game for a few months now, and really enjoy it. I do have a few ideas for improvements.

1. Right now when you complete a puzzle the screen quickly changes to a zoomed out view and the request to watch a video or play another daily shuffle pops up. This prevents the player from being able to see the completed puzzle in detail. Sometimes I struggle with the last word and am just trying various combinations. The screen changes so fast I don’t even know what that last word was.

2 It May not be worth the effort, but being able to type in a letter and have all of those letters throughout the screen light up would be helpful and keep the eyes from crossing.

I liked this game when it started, but it had some flaws. There were way too many easy puzzles and no way to know if the puzzle you chose was a three word or a twelve word type. Too many puzzles had repetitive subjects as well, and many of them (like ‘breakfast’ or ‘beach’ or ‘periodic table’) share the same answers. So for me, it was boring and rather pointless to play the game for a while. Then they introduced the jumbo puzzles and suddenly it’s fun again. There are lots more pieces to work with and the answers are more interesting. I do wish the packs were less expensive, though.

Up until yesterday I was really enjoying this game. If I got stumped I could watch an add to get a hint. One was usually enough for me to get an answer. Suddenly that option is gone. If I have to use points to purchase a hint I will no longer play. Very poor strategy to remove a feature like that from long time players. I hope it’s just a temporary glitch. I’ll revise my review if it’s corrected.

This is an update to my original review. Problem seems to be corrected. Thank you!

Think of this as a cross between jigsaw puzzles and crossword puzzles. Some levels are definitely more challenging than others, but it’s an easy game to pick up for a couple of minutes, or get sucked into for hours. A nice exercise for the mind.

Note: I had a hard time finding a lot of details about the Jumbo Packs. They contain the same number of puzzles as other packs, but the puzzles are much larger and definitely take a little more time. And solving each one gives you 10 coins instead of 5. They’re worth checking out.

Addictive and smart, but the latest grab for money is a cheat. Don’t buy no ad access as you loose all the fee hints. You will get 30 free coins a day but adds will cost way more than that. The game promoters are greedy and sneaky. The free hint video ads can be repetitive, esp. at night. But the puzzles are smart and clever. I appreciate the format and collaborative venue. Buy the double points option and you’ll create enough points to buy the bigger sized sets with only occasional participation. Those jumbo puzzles are quite rewarding to play.

Pretty nice game so far...subtle, non-distracting sound track that i really love...played in bed without disturbing the night. Puzzles steadily increase in difficulty, without starting off so simple as to be instantly boring!! Bonanza will also suggest/allow Unlock of new puzzle pack during play with consistent solving. These developers have also shown great RESPECT for players in their thoughtful AD use and placement, earning my absolute loyalty!! Addictive & challenging, this is a high quality word game. Discerning Developers who actually seem to consider the player experience, instead of AD revenue. These guys have earned my loyalty! Can’t wait for New Game!!

Love this cross between a crossword and a jumble puzzle. I’m a big fan of word games and love this one a lot! Nice and mellow. No competitions or tournaments! I just want to solve puzzles! There’s a huge collection to choose from and the puzzles vary in difficulty, though I think your knowledge of the clue topic is key. The mystery puzzles (where the clue is not completely given) are super fun because you’re working both sides of the puzzle.

Highly recommend, especially if you like words! And right now, the developers have generously made the classic puzzles free to keep our minds active during our social distancing times! Thank you Bonza! You rock!

Bonza has a great pick-up-and-play way about it, and I absolutely love its ad delivery model: when you’re stuck in a puzzle, you have the option of watching a video ad to unlock a free hint. You can unlock new puzzle packs with the in-game currency, (earned either by opting in to watch a video ad or by trading actual money for them,) but if you’re a casual player, a free game drops every day. Buy to own might be best, but if you’re going to do a freeplay game, this is a refreshing change from similar games that beat you over the head with sponsored content after every puzzle.

I have a short attention span for phone games but I just keep coming back to this one. It’s not repetitive; there’s a huge range of topics; and the game doesn’t badger you to make in-app purchases. The use of ads in this game is clever because you always have the option of turning them down, but if you choose to watch it it gives you double the “reward” for completing a puzzle, which then can go towards unlocking the next puzzle pack. If you get stuck on a puzzle, you can get hints by watching short ads, which again, are optional. I showed this game to my parents who now also play it!

Bonza is great! It tests your knowledge of multiple different subjects, and helps you to concentrate and think as you manipulate the little letter groups to find each word, and place it where it belongs. It’s very gratifying to solve each puzzle, and it’s a bonus that you can score them yourself.
A wonderfully fun added feature is that you can invent your own puzzles! You decide on a category, then you choose the appropriate words that will go into the category. My one wish would be to give Bonza players the ability to locate the puzzles they’ve created, to see how they’ve been scored by other players. That would definitely be icing on the cake!

This has been one of my favorite games for a while. It’s so relaxing and enjoyable to use. Part of it is the nice music and graphics, and of course the gameplay. I like the daily puzzles the most, but also play the puzzle packs. One minor flaw is that some words aren’t common in my country (USA) and are more specific to Australia, for example. So when I’m super stuck, it’s usually an answer I’d never know for that reason, and I just use a clue. But overall, this is a gem of a game. Definitely worth trying!