iPhone App Review: Wordsworth

Well now, Christmas has been and gone, the New Year is fast approaching and work is beckoning again. For those of you who still have time to play our latest App review might be right up your street.

Wordsworth is the latest App Store game from the fine folks at 99 Games. A word game similar to the better word games available online like Bookworm and is available for $1.99 (£1.19) in the App Store. Tasked with making words out of a hexagonal grid (that reminds me of Blockbuster) it's your job to score points and level up. A simple premise for a game but one that will keep you playing for hours on end and draw you back when you put it down. Words can be selected by either single tapping each letter and tapping the submit button or simply dragging your finger over the letter tiles then lifting off to submit. The also game includes Buzzwords, suggested words that when made boost your score, green tiles that increase individual word scores and gold tiles that can be earned by making words 2 or more letters longer than the minimum set word length. Wild card tiles can also appear which can intelligently substitute for any letter. Should you get stuck a quick shake will shuffle the letters, you can also tap on the governor of the game should shaking not be your thing. Shuffling the letters however gives you a timed tile which has to be used before the clock runs out otherwise it's game over. Thankfully the timer ticks quite slowly giving you plenty of time to get rid of it before time runs out. Each level you reach gains three more shuffles by default allowing you to find those high scoring long words with the remaining shuffles available marked by the number of hats at the top right of your screen.

As you continue through the game you upgrade your rank each time gaining a new title and a new target to get to. On default settings the game is quite easy allowing you to progress quite easy, however this can all be changed with the games options. The minimum word length can be changed from the default 3 words, through 4 and 5 to 6 words increasing the difficulty at each stage. The grid size can also be changed from 4x4 through to 7x7 letters enabling bigger and bigger words. Wordsworth also comes pack with the TWL, SOWPODS and the ENABLE words lists covering all the official Scrabble words and more. The game also comes with some decent non-obtrusive game music which is a good touch, but can be turned off should you want to listen to your iPod library. The sound effects for tile elimination, unrecognised words and levelling up are all well designed adding to the game should you want sounds on. Another nice, logical touch is that the game obeys the mute switch setting on the iPhone (something that many games seem to annoyingly disregard).

Overall Wordsworth is a nice addition to the current stock of word games on the App Store. A somewhat more relaxing and vocabulary stretching game than alternatives already available and for less than a pint it's a steal.