Wooords Review

Friday, July 29, 2011

Wooords Review

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Wooords Review

By Sinan Kubba on July 29th, 2011
Our Rating:

:: ANAGRASM
Universal App - Designed for iPhone and iPad

Wooords, with its quirky presentation, easy-to-understand mechanics, and fast-paced play, is going to consume the lives of word puzzle lovers the world over.

Developer: StrayRobot
Price: $0.99
Version: 1.1
App Reviewed on: iPhone 4

Graphics / Sound Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
User Interface Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
Gameplay Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
Re-use / Replay Value Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Overall Rating: 4.38 out of 5 stars

I have one superpower: being good at word puzzles. This superpower isn’t particularly useful in an emergency, so I find iPhone games that require need of my extraordinary ability. Right now I’m devoting my time to Words with Friends, but I tire of unleashing vernacular-based beatings upon a litany of foolish peons, laughing as they crawl back to their highly paid jobs obtained with real-world skill sets.

Wooords is a game based on the classic word-wheel newspaper puzzles. In those puzzles there are eight letters in a circle, all surrounding a ninth letter in the middle. The idea is to make as many words as possible from the available letters, but each word must involve that ninth central letter. Wooords turns that concept into an interactive game.

Each puzzle starts with nine letters scattered across a white background; it looks just like letter magnets scattered across a fridge door. To make a word in Wooords, all I have to do is what I used to do as a student with the letter magnets on the fridge in our halls of residence, namely drag the magnets across and put them next to each other. It’s so simple and neat, especially with how other letters make space for a letter I’m trying to insert. If I successfully make a word I’m rewarded with a little fanfare, a shower of stars coming out of the word, and some points too.

Woords, however, has more to offer. If I quickly make another word, say by adding an S to make a plural, I’m rewarded with a combo multiplier. The combo multiplier transforms Wooords into a face-paced, frenzied challenge to prove vernacular superpowers aren’t limited to extensiveness, especially as all the points tie into a cumulative ‘IQ’ score that I add to with every game of Wooords I play.

Wooords puts these ideas together effortlessly and complements them with an extensive dictionary and decent content. There are 30 puzzles in the Classic mode, in which you have to make a certain number of words to progress, while in Word Jam the aim is to last as many rounds as possible by making required points totals in time limits. There’s also the Daily Words mode, in which I can compete against other players to produce the best score in the best time and rank on the daily leaderboard. There’s also an IQ leaderboard, so vernacular superheroes may find the Daily Words mode very addictive.

It’s a minute criticism, but I noticed repeated assortments of letters between the Classic mode and Word Jam modes. I hope that the developer, Stray Robot, considers taking some Daily Mode puzzles and adding them to the Classic Mode, as those 30 puzzles only last a few hours at most.

Regardless, Wooords is an excellent effort. It’s neat, simple, frantic, and very, very addictive, and a suitable new home for my words-based superpower.