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You’d think playing a simple word game on your phone would be, well, simple.
But before you can unscramble a single letter, a video starts blaring about a different game you never asked for. Then a little countdown clock appears, ticking away like a kitchen timer with a grudge. Then a pop-up wants to know if you’d like to upgrade to “Premium Gold Plus.”
Most of us grumble, find the tiny X, and get on with it.
But for someone whose memory is slipping, that tiny X can be the end of the game. And for one grandfather, it nearly ended his favorite pastime for good.
The Fastest Unscrambler in the Family
Howard Izes was the kind of grandpa every kid should get. His granddaughter, Morgan Cole, called him “Big Poppy,” and their favorite way to spend time together was playing games.
Not the quiet kind, either. Grandpa Howie would make up word problems and math problems, then time Morgan and her brother to see who could solve them faster.
“His ability to unscramble words was second to none!” Morgan told Refresh Miami.
Then, in 2018, he was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s.
“It was hard for my family to see him in some ways disappear,” Morgan told Local 10 News.
He still loved his word and math games. But the online versions kept getting in his way: pop-up ads, long instructions, and countdown clocks.
“He would get one of those ads and it would completely distract him,” Morgan said. “No matter how hard we looked, we couldn’t find something that worked for him.”
So She Built One Herself
Most teenagers, faced with a broken app, would leave a one-star review and move on.
Morgan took Python and JavaScript courses, at school and online. When she got stuck, she looked up the answers in coding guides and online discussion groups. (Yes, that’s how the professionals do it too.)
It took her two years. The result is Howie’s Place, named after her grandfather.
It has six games: word unscramble, card matching, hangman, fast math, “repeat after me” and word search. What it doesn’t have matters just as much:
- No ads
- No pop-ups
- No countdown clocks
- No extra buttons to figure out
Games stay at the level you pick (easy, medium or challenging) unless you change it. If a puzzle gets tough, there’s a hint button.
That’s it. You just… play. Imagine that.
Grandpa Howie Never Got to Play
Howie died in September 2023, before the app was finished.
“Unfortunately, it took me a few years to create the app, so he didn’t get to enjoy the games, but I know he would be so proud of me,” Morgan said.
She kept going anyway.
Now Other People Are Playing
Howie’s Place launched this spring, and Morgan says it’s been seeing up to hundreds of downloads a day.
One of those players is Charlotte, who is 84.
“The thing that I love most about it is that there’s no timing, you don’t have a ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, times up,” Charlotte told CBS12 News. “But it also helps keep my mind working. I don’t just sit and endlessly look at the TV. I can sit down and do something constructive with my brain.”
The app was built for people with memory loss. But people with brain injuries and special needs are using it too, and so are kids. Caregivers and therapists can even track how a player is doing over time.
Some of those kids are playing with their grandparents.
“We’ve seen kids playing with their grandparents, being able to have that engagement together through that technology,” Morgan said.
Which is, when you think about it, exactly how this whole thing started.
A Teenager on a Mission
Morgan isn’t charging a penny for any of this.
“I just want the app to be helpful to as many people as possible,” she said.
She’s been introducing it in person to senior groups and active-aging communities near her home in Boca Raton. Summer Faerman, who directs the TLC program at B’nai Torah, is helping her share it with more families.
“It gives me hope for our next generation and our future,” Faerman said.
Us too, Summer. Us too.
Want to Try It?
Howie’s Place is free on both iPhone and Android. Just search “Howie’s Place” in your phone’s app store. You can also play on a computer at howiesplace.org.
The Game Lives On
Somewhere, there’s a grandpa who was the fastest word unscrambler in the family.
He never got to play the game his granddaughter built for him.
But every time someone opens Howie’s Place and solves a puzzle without a single ad shouting at them, a little bit of Big Poppy is in the room.
“I just know he would have been so proud of this,” Morgan said. “It just makes me happy to see people using it because it reminds me of him.”
Game on, Howie.
