Pairs: A Match Made in Heaven

We’re always looking for new ways to keep things fresh and fun at Knoword, and we know our players are hungry for different challenges.

This May, something sparked an idea for a brand-new game mode. We were at a teaching conference and a teacher shared some valuable feedback. She told me:

You need to add different game modes. Kids don’t have a long attention span, and they need variety to stay engaged.

She pointed me towards Wordwall, another popular classroom game that has a bunch of different game modes.

The inspiration behind Pairs mode

The matching mode in Wordwall caught my eye. I thought, “That could be a good fit for Knoword!” So, we started prototyping. The first idea was a simple drag-and-drop mode where you’d connect clues from one side of the screen to answers on the other.

But, we ran into a problem. Knoword packs can vary a lot in size. Imagine a game with 50 words and 50 clues all on the screen at the same time—it was too much! Too much reading, too much clutter, and it felt overwhelming. It wasn’t the fun, snappy experience we’re known for.

Finding the perfect balance

To solve this problem, we went back to the drawing board and came up with a new approach: round-based gameplay.

Here’s how it works: there are four words on one side of the screen, and four clues on the other side of the screen. You drag and drop each of the four words to connect it with its matching clue on the other side. Once you’ve made all four pairs, you move on to the next round with four more words, and so on, until you’ve completed the entire pack. This makes the game feel digestible, satisfying, and easy to jump into.

☝️ In case you missed it: Last month we released themes—lively color schemes that you can unlock with points.

A fresh look… again

Building Pairs mode also gave us a great opportunity to make some thoughtful improvements to Knoword’s overall user interface. The goal was to create a more intuitive UI that looks the same across all game modes.

We gathered all the common game elements (points, streak, time, and the game settings/menu) and organized them into a sleek new header bar at the top of the page. This change allowed us to simplify the rest of the screen, really focusing the UI on what matters most: your clues, your answers, and the core gameplay elements.

We also rolled out some minor, but super handy, UI enhancements. For example, the option to hear a clue read aloud is now represented by a clear “speak” button in the bottom right corner of any text-based clue. Plus, there’s a new indicator that lights up while it’s speaking. 🗣️

Play Pairs today!

You can play Pairs mode with any pack you like. Here are a few of our favorite packs from testing:

• Flowers: Match flower names with their pictures
• Flags of South America: Match countries with their flags
• Trout in the Classroom: Just some good ol’ trout knowledge 🐟

It’s also designed to work seamlessly across all your devices. Whether you’re on a laptop, tablet, or phone, you can jump in and start dragging and dropping!

This is just the first exciting piece of our big summer update. We have one more announcement coming before the school year ramps up again in September. So, stay tuned for that! 👀