Game reviews: Bookworm, Wordulous, WordFu - iPhone / iPod Touch

These days stretching your brain power and boosting your vocabulary doesn’t need to involve scribbling words into a newspaper or carrying a puzzle book and pen around with you.

Instead you can use your device’s touch controls to click on, move and swipe letters with ease, somehow making word games more fun, especially when pretty graphics and nice sounds are added.

There is a plethora of word games available in the App Store, offering a range of formats.

Here are three titles in the word game genre which stand out in their particular fields:

Bookworm

The aim of this game is to search for words on the 7x7 grid of random letters.

It’s a standard word puzzle formula, but it’s elevated above the average by the stylish library theme and cutesy central character Lex the Bookworm who must be kept fed with new words.

To make a word you click on its first letter and then make a chain by selecting adjoining letters.

You gain points for each word created. When the progress bar (in the form of a bookshelf) is filled you move up a level and gain a new title, such as encyclopaedia salesman or proofreader.

As you make each new word the tiles disappear, others drop down and new letter tiles appear from the top, so strategic use of letters plays a part.

Submit longer words and green, gold or diamond tiles will appear. When these tiles are used they give a huge bonus to your score.

Unfortunately there are evil burning tiles which appear and cause a nuisance. If these burn through before you use them in a word then it’s game over.

As with all PopCap titles, Bookworm is so highly polished that you can practically see your face in it.

There are lots of nice touches such as word history which lists all the three, four, five-letter (and beyond) words you’ve made. There is also a book list which puts the words you’ve found in previous games into different categories.

For me Bookwrom lacks a little of the addictiveness that other PopCap games have. It’s missing something of that must-have-one-more-go factor which both Bejeweled 2 and Peggle have in abundance.

But it’s still a very enjoyable game which, with its classic and timed modes of play, should provide hours of word hunting fun.

Verdict: 8 out of 10

Wordulous

Like most word games the format of Wordulous, from 99games, is very basic.

This is an anagram game which challenges you to find as many words as possible from a jumbled set of six or seven letters. Different length dotted lines, nicely laid out on a blackboard in this case, show you how many words you still need to find.

The word game genre in the App Store is awash with this type of game, most of them offering very similar gameplay.

What sets Wordulous apart from its many rivals is its lovely presentation and interesting game modes.

Practice mode allows you to test your word spotting skills without a clock and provides a gentle introduction to the game.

Examination mode is where the challenge begins as you try to make the maximum number of words in three minutes. The ticking clock and the bell which sounds at the end make this mode feel like you’re sitting an exam back in school. A nice touch is you can get a new set of letters midway through the exam, so it doesn’t get frustrating. Little bonus puzzles along the way add extra variety.

Wordulous also has an online multiplayer feature which allows you to challenge Facebook friends or phone book contacts.

Local and global leaderboards keep track of how well you’re doing, while another nice touch in Wordulous is that it also assigns one of 35 rankings to your performance in each game. I apparently have the verbal ability of a soldier, which is a good thing, I think.

The colourful cartoony / nursery rhyme graphics give Wordulous a friendly and cheerful personality.

There isn’t much scope for innovation of the standard anagram format so Wordulous, not particularly through any fault of its own, doesn’t score high on originality. However, it does what it needs to do well and contains enough nice little features to pull itself to near the top of the class in the word game genre.

Verdict: 7.5 out of 10

WordFu

If it has been your dream to play a game which combines word making with martial arts, with a bit of Yahtzee thrown in, then WordFu is your dream come true.

WordFu from Ngmoco uses a ninja art style and sound effects to create an exciting word puzzle which puts you in a race against the clock to create as many words as possible from nine lettered dice which you roll at the start (by shaking your device).

Making a word is easy – just touch each letter in order. You shouldn’t get stuck for a word as you can use each letter more than once in the same word.

To submit a word you flick your iPod or iPhone, resulting in a very satisfying karate chop sound effect. Each word submitted scores you points and regains some of your lost time.

Perform well during a game and you’ll get bonus dice, such as fire which gives you double scores for a limited time and ice which freezes time temporarily.

Whether it’s the kung-fu theme or racing against the clock that does it, I don’t know, but WordFu is a very intense game.

Your brain and wrist can feel tired after each game but WordFu keeps you coming back for more with its clever achievement system which awards coloured belts based on progress made, just like real martial arts. The best I’ve managed so far is expert brown – I expect black belt or grand master status is going to be a long way off.

Wifi multiplayer is also a great feature, creating some very competitive two-player duels using the same letters.

WordFu takes the simple concept of making words and lifts it to a higher level with its clever styling.

I’ve come across lots of good word games on the iPod but WordFu edges the competition with its winning combination of design and gameplay.

Verdict: 8.5 out of 10