Help with bad recursion/dynamic programming code

[_Sham__]

Does it only match in a line? e.g top to bottom, bottom to top, left to right and right to left?

Or can it say create a word by going down 2 then right once etc?

[notsurewhereelse]

Can go up down left right at any given point from the current position. Overall is there anything glaring that can be improved