When your job involves writing about video games, you quickly come to realize there are way too many video games to ever keep track of. You have two options here: painstakingly trawl storefronts and lists of new releases every week in an effort that will almost certainly destroy you, or trust that the universe will put cool games in front of you when the time is right.
Here’s an example of the latter: This weekend I randomly saw a post on Bluesky about a browser game called Stealth Crossword. The game appears to have come out a few months ago, and developer ComputerJames says it’s a remake of a game they made six years ago. It’s a very short game, taking me about 10 minutes. ComputerJames describes it as “the forced stealth mission in a game that really shouldn’t have one.”
The genre this stealth is forced into is a crossword puzzle. Your character turns into any letter you press on your keyboard, and you then have to slot that letter into crossword clues to spell a word. Overtop this wordplay is a stealth game about international espionage, complete with cameras to avoid, blind spots to hide in, bad guys to disguise yourself in front of, and secrets to uncover. The game has two endings, and is, in ComputerJames’ words, “100% not procedural and un-replayable.”
Switching to a new letter sends you back to the start of a level, so you have to think a bit strategically about how to fill in the crossword clues, and you also have to employ the usual stealth game timing and navigating. There are a few twists on the crossword mechanics I won’t spoil, but the game never loses focus on its core idea. Neither the stealth nor crossword gameplay is too challenging, but when combined they turn into some new thing that works perfectly even though when you step back to think about it, the whole idea is weird as hell.
I’d absolutely play a much longer version of Stealth Crossword if one existed, but I also love that it’s just this small, contained thing that was put before me completely at random. Instead of letting it cause me to panic about how many other cool games I’m surely missing out on, I’m just going to be psyched that I saw it.
