Dear Reader
Literary Wordplay
Play your favorite books! Puzzle through Pride and Prejudice, Wizard of Oz, Dracula, and more, as you unlock new word puzzles and build your library.
• Play with more than a hundred classic books
• Unlock dozens of ways to Wordplay
• Acquire new books from a rotating selection in the Bookstore
• Earn Rare Books by completing challenging Reading Goals
• Embark on Research missions to unlock special abilities
• Puzzle through increasingly difficult Daily Challenges
“If I’m not actually reading in my down time then I’m likely playing Dear Reader.” -one of our dear players
Dear Reader lets you curl up and play your favorite books, turning classic literature into clever word puzzles. Unscramble passages from famous books, unlock unique puzzles, and add new books to your library.
Dear Reader includes over 130 literary classics and dozens of different types of word puzzles, from unscrambling anagrams to swapping lines of text. Dear Reader is the first and only game where you can play with the actual written words of so many tempting books of classic literature!
As Game Developer’s Alissa McAloon wrote, Dear Reader is “a game that’s as difficult to put down as a good book.”
Best Apple Arcade Games, IGN
Top 5 Apple Arcade recommended games, Bustle Magazine
12 Best Apple Arcade games, Gamespot
10 Best Mobile Games of the Year, Paste Magazine
Official Finalist, IndieCade
Official Selection, Indie Megabooth GDC Showcase
Official Selection, Wordplay Festival
Best Gameplay Finalist, Games for Change
Best Meaningful Play, International Mobile Gaming Awards
more Although I wouldn't call it a game. It's more of a tool for developing attention and a great addition if you're learning English.
Although I wouldn't call it a game. It's more of a tool for developing attention and a great addition if you're learning English.
That’s by no means best game I have played so far. Just what I was looking for!
That’s by no means best game I have played so far. Just what I was looking for!
Dear Readers, here is another batch of new books:
• Tales of Bengal, by S. B. Banerjea
• The Montessori Method, by Maria Montessori
• The Rover Boys in Business; Or, The Search for the Missing Bonds, by Edward Stratemeyer
• Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic, by Henri Bergson
• Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog), by Jerome Jerome
Also included: small fixes and adjustments
3.12.0 11 Mar
New books, Dear Readers! This update includes:
Cranford, by Elizabeth Gaskell,
Histories, by Herodotus,
Turkish Fairy Tales, by Ignácz Kúnos!
Also in this release: small fixes and adjustments.
3.11.0 10/12/2025
New stories await, Dear Readers! This update brings you:
Around the World in 80 Days, by Jules Verne,
How to Grow the Peanut, by George Carver,
Millions of Cats, by Wanda Gág,
The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet, by William Shakespeare!
Also in this release: small fixed and adjustments, including an easier Sunday Daily Challenge.
3.10.0 10/09/2025
Hello Dear Readers, we have another batch of new books for you! They include:
Morning Glories, by Josephine Heard,
Steam Man of the Prairies, by Edward Ellis,
The Republic, by Plato,
And The Tale of Peter Rabbit, by Beatrix Potter!
3.9.0 11/06/2025
Hello Dear Readers, we have some new books for you! They include:
Dante’s Inferno, by Dante Alighieri,
The Belle’s Stratagem, by Hannah Cowley,
Virgie’s Inheritance, by Georgie Sheldon,
And Little Mother Goose!
3.8.1 01/04/2025
Hello Dear Readers, we have some new books for you! They include:
Dante’s Inferno, by Dante Alighieri,
The Belle’s Stratagem, by Hannah Cowley,
Virgie’s Inheritance, by Georgie Sheldon,
And Little Mother Goose!
3.8.0 12/03/2025
Hello Dear Readers,
We continue to improve your experience with new bug fixes, difficulty balancing, typo editing, and other minor updates. Happy reading!
3.7.0 20/11/2024
Dear Readers, just in time for back to school, we release six new books, including two rares:
• Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment
• Caroline Louisa Hunt, Cheese and its economical uses in the diet (rare)
• George Byron, Don Juan (rare)
• Machado de Assis, The Fortune Teller
• Katherine Mansfield, The Garden Party
• Carlo Collodi, Pinocchio: The Tale of a Puppet
Plus bug fixes and minor content updates.
3.6.0 10/09/2024
Dear Readers, prepare for a truly major update... by popular demand, we’re making it possible to get any book you want - at any time!
In the new CATALOGUE section of the Bookstore, all books in the game are available for purchase with Ink. There will still be rotating shelves of featured books at discounted ink prices, but if there’s a specific book you want from our full collection, now you can get it!
And that's not all - there's also a new PUZZLER difficulty setting, which gives you a serious puzzle challenge but without any time pressure. Enjoy!
3.5.0 18/06/2024
Version 3.0:
Very Dear Readers,
We are happy to announce a major update to the game! This version of Dear Reader contains the following changes, additions, and improvements:
• Six new books - including Shakespeare's Sonnets (unabridged!), Frederick Douglass' autobiography, and a century-old guide to Hypnotism, Mesmerism, and Mind-Reading.
• Completely revised Rare Books section - choose any book at any time
• All-new "Asters" - earn Asters from Reading Goals to get Rare Books.
• Plus text edits, gameplay balance tweaks, and UX fixes.
Enjoy the revised version of the game and happy reading!
Version 3.0.1:
• Updated Research Assignments
Version 3.0.2:
• Minor Tutorial Update
3.0.2 12/03/2024
Version 3.0.1:
• Updated Research Assignments
Version 3.0.0:
Very Dear Readers,
We are happy to announce a major update to the game! This version of Dear Reader contains the following changes, additions, and improvements:
• Six new books - including Shakespeare's Sonnets (unabridged!), Frederick Douglass' autobiography, and a century-old guide to Hypnotism, Mesmerism, and Mind-Reading.
• Completely revised Rare Books section - choose any book at any time
• All-new "Asters" - earn Asters from Reading Goals to get Rare Books.
• Plus text edits, gameplay balance tweaks, and UX fixes.
Enjoy the revised version of the game and happy reading!
3.0.1 01/03/2024
Very Dear Readers,
We are happy to announce a major update to the game! This version of Dear Reader contains the following changes, additions, and improvements:
• Six new books - including Shakespeare's Sonnets (unabridged!), Frederick Douglass' autobiography, and a century-old guide to Hypnotism, Mesmerism, and Mind-Reading.
• Completely revised Rare Books section - choose any book at any time
• All-new "Asters" - earn Asters from Reading Goals to get Rare Books.
• Plus text edits, gameplay balance tweaks, and UX fixes.
Enjoy the revised version of the game and happy reading!
3.0.0 24/01/2024
Hello Dear Readers,
We continue to improve your experience with new bug fixes, difficulty balancing, typo editing, and other minor updates. Happy reading!
2.7.1 12/07/2023
Dearest Readers,
In this update, enjoy four new books for your reading pleasure.
• New titles include The Development of Metaphysics in Persia, “The Vanishing American,” Rubaiyat Of Omar Khayyam, and for you songbirds, How to Sing by the famous soprano Lilli Lehmann.
• Text edits and typo fixes - many based on your feedback and comments. Thank you!
2.7.0 29/06/2023
Very Dear Readers,
In this update, enjoy four new books for your reading pleasure.
• New titles include A Girl’s Ride in Iceland, Tales from the Hindu Dramatists, Edison’s Conquest of Mars, and The Art of Money Getting by none other than P.T. Barnum himself.
• Text edits and typo fixes - many based on player feedback and comments. Thanks for that!
2.6.0 03/03/2023
Dearest Readers,
You’ve been asking for more books - and here they are!
• We’re adding four titles, including the classic Black Beauty, Laozi’s Tao Te Ching, and The Blazing World from 1660 - one of the first science-fiction books ever written!
• Minor difficulty adjustments to Research Assignments.
• Fixes to the interface and typo edits.
2.5.0 10/11/2022
Dear Dear Readers,
Another update for your reading pleasure! This new version of the game includes:
• “Words from Ukraine” - a new bookshelf with 4 new books
• in response to your requests: more frequent bookshelf rotation
• lots of difficulty balancing - in Daily Challenges, Reading Goals, book difficulty ratings, twist puzzles, and more
• text edits, interface smoothing, and various and sundry small fixes
2.4.0 26/05/2022
Dearest Readers,
In this update: a bounty of beautiful bits for your reading pleasure…
• four brand-new reading goals in the rare books section
• four new secret rare books to collect
• redesigned leaderboards for keeping track of your progress
• the ability to restart a chapter from the pause screen
• lots of small editorial fixes and improvements
2.3.0 01/03/2022
Version 2.2.1:
• Updates and improvements, including a fix for buying rare books
Version 2.2.0:
Dear Readers,
We've implemented a veritable cornucopia of novel delights:
• a "New & Notable" section of the bookstore to highlight newly added books
• four new books in the game, including 1,001 Nights
• accessibility improvements for playing with VoiceOver
• Research Assignment clarifications and fixes
• a counter that displays when you unlock the next Wordplay
• new Wordplay puzzles will be unlocked more quickly than before
• interaction improvements and text edits throughout
2.2.1 14/10/2021
Dear Readers,
We've implemented a veritable cornucopia of novel delights:
• a "New & Notable" section of the bookstore to highlight newly added books
• four new books in the game, including 1,001 Nights
• accessibility improvements for playing with VoiceOver
• Research Assignment clarifications and fixes
• a counter that displays when you unlock the next Wordplay
• new Wordplay puzzles will be unlocked more quickly than before
• interaction improvements and text edits throughout
2.2.0 04/10/2021
Minor fixes and improvements for all platforms - now optimized for Mac with M1. Enjoy, Dear Readers!
2.0.1 28/04/2021
Dear Readers,
There are so many improvements to the game that we have officially decided to declare this version 2.0.
• You can now select your favorite Wordplay puzzles as you play. So you only receive the puzzles you like best! We are particularly excited about this new feature.
• Several books have been added to the game - including 4 Rare Books with brand new reading goals!
• We’ve made lots of edits to the text and tweaks to the research assignments - many of the changes thanks to reader comments! So please keep sending us feedback.
• Small changes throughout the game interaction and tutorial experience. One bit you might notice is that loading the game takes you more directly into the action.
2.0.0 11/03/2021
Dearest Readers,
A plethora of loveliness in this new version of the game:
• The bonus effect you earn from Research Assignments is no longer time-based. Instead, the bonus lasts for a certain number of chapters, no matter when you play them. Huzzah! We made this change based on your feedback - so thanks!
• We are offering for the first time the official Dear Reader iOS widget! Those of you on iPhone and iPads can create a widget that will display the daily challenge’s quote-of-the-day.
• Lots of little gameplay and interaction improvements throughout the entire Dear Reader experience - including Apple’s new Access Point interface for getting to the Game Center.
• We’ve also made a number of small text edits and tweaks. Many of these were spotted by you, our dear readers. You humble us.
1.4.2 06/01/2021
Dear Dear Readers,
Many enhancements to your reading and playing experience:
• A dozen new books, including The Secret Garden, Call of the Wild, and The Three Musketeers!
• Lots of new bookshelves appearing in the store - and new options for being informed about them.
• Integration with Apple Arcade’s new and improved save game system.
• Many little improvements to the game interface and edits to the text.
• We’d love to have you on our new mailing list! Sign up in the options section.
1.4.0 06/10/2020
Dear Readers,
Some delightful improvements for your reading pleasure:
• We are incredibly excited to share with you a brand-new way to play: RESEARCH ASSIGNMENTS! Every day will bring you 3 different assignments that ask for specific kinds of books or chapters. Complete the assignments to gain a special gameplay boost.
• For new players, there is a a revamped tutorial that more properly introduces the bookstore and the book-buying process.
• Lots of other small fixes, edits, and tweaks!
1.3.0 20/08/2020
Dear Readers, here is another batch of new books:
• Tales of Bengal, by S. B. Banerjea
• The Montessori Method, by Maria Montessori
• The Rover Boys in Business; Or, The Search for the Missing Bonds, by Edward Stratemeyer
• Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic, by Henri Bergson
• Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog), by Jerome Jerome
Also included: small fixes and adjustments
more Version 3.12.0 11 Mar
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