Overview


WordsWorth Offers two game modes: clas­sic and timed. In the clas­sic mode, you create words on the fly with an unlim­ited amount of time. In timed mode, you create words the same way but are forced to com­pete against the clock. For each level you master in timed mode, you receive an addi­tional 30 sec­onds on the game clock. For exam­ple, the game begins with 1:30 on the clock on level one. After you beat level one, level two begins with 2:00 on the clock, level three is 2:30 and so forth.


Gameplay can be fast and furi­ous in timed mode or much more leisurely in clas­sic mode. It depends on how you want to play the game. If you take time hunt­ing for larger words, you are rewarded with more points. If you want to find as many words as pos­si­ble and use mostly shorter words, you can do that, too.


WordsWorth isn’t just about putting words together but also uti­liz­ing the game board and wild­card pieces to max­i­mum effect. Some let­ters, typ­i­cally more dif­fi­cult let­ters to use like the let­ters Z and the only two-​letter piece in the game, “Qu,” carry an added bonus if used. For exam­ple, the letter Z is worth three points. These bonus let­ters each have a tiny number on their tile indi­cat­ing the bonus.



Other bonuses avail­able in WordsWorth include green and gold col­ored tiles, which both offer points bonuses; blue tiles, which act as wild cards, and shuf­fle tiles, which are gray and beige and shuf­fle the game board when used. 
The game will also offer a buzz­word in each round. This buzz­word will almost always include let­ters on the board sep­a­rated from each other. If you places these let­ters together to form the buzz­word, you receive bonus points.

Even if you play the game in clas­sic mode, you’ll encounter timed pieces which explode and end the game if you don’t use them in the allot­ted time. These pieces are red in color and fea­ture a clock face which counts down until the piece explodes and the game ends.



If you become stuck while play­ing WordsWorth, you can use one of the shuf­fle “hats” that “Mr. WordsWords,” that fellow at the bottom of the screen, gives you at the end of each level. Shuf­fling the board makes con­tin­u­ing the game easier but also adds an extra timed tile each time you shuf­fle the board. Learn­ing when to shuf­fle the game board and when to use wild­card pieces is part of the fun of the game.

WordsWorth offers plays a choice of three dif­fer­ent word data­bases. The avail­able data­bases include two dif­fer­ent Tour­na­ment Scrab­ble lists and a third list which WordsWorth calls “the most thor­oughly researched wordlist for word game usage.” The list you choose will prob­a­bly depend on where you live — one Scrab­ble list is for the USA, Canada, Thai­land and Israel and the other is for all other Eng­lish speak­ing countries.



Aside from the word list, WordsWorth also allows you to edit the game rules and options, too. You can change the min­i­mum word size from the default three let­ters all the way up to five let­ters, the play­ing grid from small to large and the number of free scram­bles per level.

WordsWorth is a very pol­ished game with few flaws. One minor frus­tra­tion I encoun­tered while play­ing is the fact that the game does not rec­og­nize some words, espe­cially three letter words or common abbre­vi­a­tions. While this can be frus­trat­ing, the game accepts plenty of three letter “words” that really aren’t words used in every­day con­ver­sa­tion. Still, WordsWorth is a strat­egy game and part of that strat­egy is uti­liz­ing the let­ters on the board to gain the most points possible.


Summary


WordsWorth by 99Games Online is a fun game. Game­play is straight­for­ward at first but requires good strat­egy to advance to the higher levels. If you enjoy lin­guis­tic games or a good puzzle, try WordsWorth for the iPhone. It comes in two fla­vors a free ver­sion with only 3 levels and the full paid ver­sion with 30 levels, a global score card and other fea­tures, which costs $1.99.

This review was writ­ten by Bren­dan Wilhide