Review: Bookworm

Game: Bookworm
Language: Java
Category: Puzzle / Wordgame
Tested on: Debian Linux + Firefox
Rating: 4 out of 5
Offered by: Popcap Games (link)

It’s been a while since I did some reviews, so lets do some catching up. Lately I’ve been angling toward wordgames, and I had remembered playing Bookworm before, so I ran it up again

Boy was that a mistake. This game is twice as addicting as I remember it, and I remember it being quite a hook. The double-whammy is it is also available for Palm devices, so using it on my Kyocera palm phone really cemented the addiction. Again.

The basic premise is simply ‘finding words in the blocks’. The wrapping story is you’re a little bookworm eating up letters before the library burns down. The longer the words, the more points you get. Letters are also scored scrabble-like, so a word like ‘xylophone’ will score more than a word like ‘banana’.

You link up letters by either dragging the mouse across the letters, or by clicking them in sequence. The columns are staggered a half-square, so each letter is touching 6 others. Additionally, by making longer words, you get ‘bonus tiles’ that can double or quadruple your scores on a word. I’ve gotten as high as 4800 points on a single word.

The gameplay is methodical and quiet. No blasting away at aliens with this one. The interface is, as expected with Popcap, clean, easy to work with, and does its job well. The Palm version is an exact duplicate of the web version, so you can play on the road.

The long game time, even challenge, and simple approach make this one a lot of fun to play for a long time at a stretch. Check the clock often, and don’t start it up on days where you have deadlines looming.