Wordopolis™

Word search puzzles as research games:
Collect feedback while solving puzzles

What is Wordopolis?

Wordopolis plays like a traditional word search puzzle but collects user feedback along the way.

Everyone remembers the old paperback word search puzzle books, where words related to a topic are hidden within a sea of random letters. Wordopolis taps into this deep experience and presents a digital word search puzzle, asking questions about each of the hidden terms as they’re discovered. It’s a fun and effective way to integrate puzzle gameplay and data collection.

Creating a Wordopolis puzzle is as simple as entering your topic and list of terms into the Wordopolis configurator, specifying what question should be asked about each of those words (via a rating scale and question prompt), and publishing the game to your audience.

Play a sample Wordopolis Game

Gameplay Mechanics

  • The player selects the desired game difficulty (determines how many directions words can be placed), or the researcher optionally configures the difficulty level to be used by all players
  • Players search for each of the hidden words in the puzzle, mindful of an optional timer
  • As each word is found, an optional question prompt is displayed with a configurable rating scale (2 to 11 points) for data collection
  • After time expires, all undiscovered words are revealed and their question prompts displayed to the user
  • Optional end-of-game informational content is displayed

Game Options

  • Difficulty: Specify the game’s difficulty, or allow players to self-select
  • Board Size: Set the width and height of the word search play area
  • Tutorial: Enable or disable a pre-game tutorial that outlines how to play the game
  • Timer: Set an optional maximum amount of time for players to search for words
  • Audio: Enable or disable sound effects

Visual Customizations

  • Text colors
  • Upload optional custom game board artwork

Pre-Game Splash Screen

  • Specify a custom logo or image as the splash screen introduction
  • Customize pre-game instruction text
  • Customize screen and text color
  • Customize difficulty descriptions / labels

End-of-Game Feedback

At the end of a completed Wordopolis game, researchers can present the user with a custom informational screen or resources

Sample Use Cases

Purchase / Usage Habits

Instead of using a large rating grid to determine the purchase or usage frequency of various items in a set, place those items as hidden terms in a Wordopolis game. The question prompt after discovering each word can capture purchase frequency, or brand affinity, or likelihood to buy, or any other evaluative metric you can think of.

This Wordopolis example measures which research methodologies are used by the player.

Play the demo

Brand Awareness / Familiarity

Place a set of related brands from your category or industry of focus into a Wordopolis puzzle and ask players how familiar they are with each brand. In less than 5 minutes, you’ve created a gamified word search experience that replaces a brand awareness question!

This Wordopolis demo measures the familiarity of various video games across multiple game genres.

Play the demo

Attitudes & Beliefs

Questions in a Wordopolis game don’t need to be identical for each word; they don’t even necessarily need to reference the hidden word. You can use this flexibility to your advantage, creating a topical game that asks a dozen different questions all within the context of a word search game.

This Wordopolis demo measures attitudes and decisions related to COVID-19 and future pandemic expectations.

Play the demo