B+Sometimes I need a good smack upside the head. You see, I forget that games don't need guns swords, explosions, zombies, or totally sweet graphics to be fun and serve a purpose. Wordzy gave me a nice SMACK tonight. Just don't play this game when you're hungry or all you will think of of is five letter foods. Cheese, cheese, cheese, chips, chips, chips, nachos!!
The premise is fairly simple, however my thick noggin would have appreciated a more robust tutorial because it took me a bit to get situated and understand my goal. Essentially, you need to figure out an unknown 5-letter word. The only way to do this is to spell other 5 letter words to gain clues towards the winning word. Letters become colored to indicate how close you're getting, and then you make your next attempt. Uncover the winning word, and well, you win!
Like many word games, Wordzy caused my brain to begin leaking after 15 minutes or so, but the competitive nature inside me kept me addicted to uncovering those special words. I started to figure out strategies surrounding vowels and made sure every word I spelled tested out more common letters. There's a couple obvious game types including one where you race a clock in case you want some extra pressure. While I didn't get to test it out, this game will shine in the multiplayer play mode. Going head to head against a friend or family member would be a blast, and you might learn a new word or two.
I don't have any major gripes because this game accomplishes what it sets out to do. It's not flashy by any means, but most people who download this one aren't looking for Resident Evil 5. It would have been nice to add some themed backgrounds and maybe some more simple graphical effects just for the sake of polish and appeal. And a clue system would have been appreciated, to help players with tougher words, but maybe I am just not hardcore wordzy enough.
What I like about this game is that it's so well aimed at it's intended audience. It's not for everyone (given the aforementioned lack of the items above), but it a fun, affordable (200 MP)word puzzle game with an educational twist. I recommend this for gamer families, wordsmiths, and parents who want their kids to use their Xbox to help their children learn, not just tweak their twitch reaction times.
Thanks for the great review. I'm glad you liked the game.
ReplyDeleteWe experimented with showing the definition as a hint but that just made it too easy. The only hints now are using the bonus letters to get the next available letter in the puzzle.
I can see now that a tutorial would have helped better explain what to do in the game. I will keep that in mind for the future.
Thanks again
John
We bought this game after the demo time ran out, but we've found a few things after playing for awhile that can be annoying. For example, when using the stick to enter the letters, it's too easy to accidentally move the stick a bit to the left and jump back several letters. Combined with moving up or down you can mess up the word pretty easily.
ReplyDeleteAlso, moving through the alphabet one letter at a time gets old, even if you click the button to toggle on the faster scrolling. Having a pop up keyboard that appears under the line you are working on, and selecting the letter you want with the stick and then pushing right trigger to move one letter to the right, and left trigger to move back a letter seems like it would work smoother.
Otherwise it's a fun game.