We all have that one puzzle game sitting on our home screen that completely destroys our daily productivity. You open it up on the Tube in London, or while waiting for a coffee in Toronto, and suddenly forty five minutes just vanish.

If your brain is hardwired to solve problems and you absolutely live for that “aha!” moment, Random Logic Games totally nailed it with their take on the classic 4 picture puzzle format. Guess The Word is a wildly addictive trap that actively uses your own logic against you.

DECODING THE VISUAL CHAOS

The entire premise is brilliantly simple, which is exactly why it hooks you so fast.

You tap play and the screen immediately throws four seemingly random pictures in your face. Your only job? Figure out the single, connecting word that magically ties all four of those weird images together. The game hands you a scrambled bank of letters at the bottom. You just tap to drop them onto the board, or tap again to pull them back if you realize you made a massive mistake.

Fair warning, though. The developers totally lull you into a false sense of security. The first few rounds are an absolute breeze. But give it a few hours, and you will find yourself staring at your screen completely stumped, trying to figure out what a dog, a bicycle, a rusty pipe, and a cloud all have in common.

THE BAILOUT OPTIONS

Every time you actually nail a puzzle, the game tosses you some coins. Hoard these like absolute treasure. When the difficulty inevitably spikes and your brain completely freezes, you will desperately need to buy a hint.

You get a few different lifelines to choose from depending on how stuck you actually are.

• Expose A Letter: Drops one correct piece of the puzzle right into place to jog your memory.

• Remove Letters: Aggressively wipes out the useless decoy characters from your letter bank so you can actually think straight.

• Solve the Question: If you are entirely stuck and just want to end the misery, this nukes the entire level and pushes you forward to the next one.

• Ask a Friend: Easily the best feature. You can literally fire the puzzle straight over to your buddies on Facebook and make it their problem to solve. Let them do the heavy lifting.

BRAGGING RIGHTS AND FREE LOOT

Playing solo is a fun way to kill time, but absolutely crushing your friends’ high scores is just way better.

The built in leaderboards let you track exactly who is currently playing, how far they have survived, and if you are currently kicking their butt. Because they hooked up a pretty sweet social economy, the more friends you drag into the game, the more free coins you can seamlessly send and receive from each other.

Oh, and do not forget the easiest trick in the book. Even if you don’t have time to actually play a full round, open the app every single day. They hand out free daily coin rewards just for showing up.

Stop playing mindless tapping games that melt your brain. Grab this download, challenge your logic, and see exactly how many pictures you can decode before you get hopelessly stuck.