Riddles in Knotwords are very similar to crossword puzzles, but the list of clues is gone. Instead, the board is divided into segments and you are told exactly which letters should fit within each region. Your goal is to fit all the letters as needed while still spelling the words correctly both down and across.
At its most basic, a board will give you two adjacent segments with two letters. One must contain the letters A and E, and the other must contain the letters S and R. Since these two segments form a line across, they must together form a word. So in this case you know that the letters go in the order EARS and not e.g. AESR. Because the second is not a word, I checked.
The puzzles clearly become more complicated when the segments are not just two letters, but three, four or five, and in crossword-like forms, meaning that these letters are spread over two or more words. There are plenty of fine chunks of UI design that help keep it manageable as puzzles grow larger, such as the on-screen keyboard, which highlights the only letters required in the selected segment.
Knotwords is the work of Zach Gage and Jack Schlesinger. Gage is a regular producer of interesting puzzles, including twists on standards like chess and sudoku, some of which he has created with Schlesinger. Gage was also a designer on spaceship-in-crisis sim Tharsis.
Could I boldly stretch myself and say that Knotwords is a Wordle-like, and put up with my obsession with everything inspired by the browser’s puns? It has new daily riddles, but otherwise I think Knotwords does not have much in common with Wordle-likes as a format beyond the superficial similarity of using words.
You can download Knotwords now from Steam, where it costs £ 8.36 / € 9 / $ 9 with its 10% launch discount.