RITA is a charming, crossword-based puzzle platformer that is sending Sam and J.J. into some of the most happy places.
This is a game that if we just describe it at face value we’ll sound like we made it up but the reality is that the concept is so beautifully simple. We are a chicken that solves crosswords in order to platform our way to our goal. This is silly but beautiful.
Cozy gets thrown around a lot and this game IS cozy but it has moments that broke me down. For the most part the gameplay loop is that we find letters in the current area of the world we’re in and those letters are used to solve crosswords we’re unlocked to manifest things in the level we’ll need. Stairs, glasses to read signs, shoes to run, ramps, even the ability to jump need to be solved in a crossword puzzle. Delightful stuff.
But much like Mario Sunshine there is evil found in bonus levels we unlock by finding feathers. These feather levels are word searches, mostly benign ethereal spaces following the same rules we’d expect from the main game. But sometimes we’re playing a game at 12:45 am and they drop this on us and we just sit there gawking at the screen. Defeated. Unable to process what they want.
Thank you for this.
This review is based on a Steam code sent to SideQuesting by the publisher. This video first appeared on The SideQuest Live for August 8, 2026.
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