KrissX (pronounced “criss cross”) is the latest puzzle title to make its way to the Xbox 360, a console that is greatly lacking when it comes to quality puzzle games these days. While there isn’t anything particularly groundbreaking, it is a welcome addition for the casual crowd who may have been feeling a bit neglected over the past few months. Don’t get me wrong, the Xbox Live Arcade has a fairly steady influx of decent casual games, but it is not often enough that we get a decent puzzler, and KrissX does what it can to help level the playing field somewhat.

Playing KrissX feels a bit like looking at an in-progress game of Clabbers—an anagram variant of Scrabble—and trying to work your way backwards to figure out which words are being played. The playing field is set up with a number of intersecting words that have been scrambled, and with the aid of clues, it is your job to unscramble all of the letters and figure out which words they make. It is essentially a mixture of crosswords and word jumbles, both of which are longtime newspaper favorites, so it should easily appeal to fans of both trivia and anagrams.

While the game is very fun, it suffers somewhat from being too easy for too long. This should work out perfectly for the most casual of casual gamers, but having to work your way through 50 levels before the difficulty finally starts to ramp up can be off-putting. Of course, with 150 levels in the Quest Mode alone, you will still get to spend plenty of time with more difficult puzzles. To help make things more interesting, there are also colored bonus circles that sometimes appear when creating the correct words, and as they float down to the bottom of the screen, you can press the corresponding colored buttons on your controller to collect them. Press an incorrect button, however, and the bonuses will become temporarily unavailable, sometimes causing you to miss them. It is an unnecessary addition to the game, but it does help spice things up and keep you busy.

If Quest Mode isn’t enough, there is also the Time Attack with timed puzzles—where catching the bonuses is crucial—as well as a Timeless Mode that lets you play at your own pace. There are also unlockable Special Puzzles, which will challenge you with themed puzzles that sometimes take an extra bit of thinking. The only real problem I had with KrissX is that I felt like it needed an option to turn off the hints. Although some of them may be necessary in the latter levels, I felt that the hints gave away the answers far too often. And despite the game having over 3,500 words in its vocabulary, there are some repeats, so recognizing certain words may only take a second or two, especially when coupled with these hints.

To outweigh this issue, KrissX provides a strong casual gaming experience that entertains for hours. Even after completing the main quest and playing through all of the different modes, I still felt compelled to go back and play some more. There is no multiplayer to speak of (I’m not quite sure how that would actually work in a game like this), but my wife still enjoyed sitting next to me and playing through several rounds together as I controlled and she called out answers. After only a few minutes, we were shoving each other back and forth because she wanted to play, which is funny to hear coming from a woman who usually couldn’t care less about video games of any sort.

Overall, KrissX is a great experience that is worth the money. Like many recent puzzlers, there isn’t much variety in the soundtrack, but what’s there is quite nice. And I was particularly fond of the ever-evolving background that gradually cycles through all of the seasons over the course of 150 different images—one for each level in the Quest Mode. It’s a very subtle feature that works wonderfully. Much of the Xbox 360 audience isn’t likely to appreciate a game such as this, but anyone who enjoys a good, mellow puzzler should certainly give KrissX a shot.

Score: 8/10

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Note: All screenshots in this KrissX review are from the PC version because Konami and its PR firm have not released any from the XBLA version.

KrissX was developed by Regolith Games and published by Konami. It was released for the Xbox 360’s Xbox Live Arcade on January 28, 2010.