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Rating:

• Price: $0.99 (Get It)
• Version: 1.1
• Developer: Tide River Farm Design

WordMix is a fairly simple word game that utilizes your knowledge of the English vocabulary. Letters are jumbled up, and it’s your job to piece them together to form the correct word. You are awarded a green star if you get the correct word without using any hints. You get a gold star if you get the correct word using one of two hints you’re allowed. If you ask for a 3rd hint, you’ll fail that particular round and get awarded a red X. WordMix can be played in portrait mode, or if you tilt the device to the side, in landscape mode.

The game tracks your progress, whether you get a green star, gold star, or a red X for the last 5 words. It also tracks your statics, the amount of Perfects (winning with no hints), winning with hints, and the amount of time you gave up or failed.

Options include the ability to turn on/off the click sounds, sound effects, the ability to clear the letters with a shake of the iPhone/iPod Touch, toggle back and forth from a light or dark background, to allow hints, and to reset statistics.

As a longtime journalist, I tend to enjoy word games. So I can say that I fairly enjoy WordMix. It’s nothing fancy, but it does challenge your vocabulary and it has some nice options.

Worth mentioning is how smooth the controls are handled in WordMix. It just feels right, and I had no issues moving letters around and interacting with the game. It’s a small thing, but Tide River Design handled it well in WordMix.

The graphics is pretty simple, there’s not much to look at. It’s a word game, after all. For what it does, the graphics is good enough, and can’t be called an eyesore at all. Of note is the font choice for the game, which is a nice serif font that is easy to read.

The sound effects are simple, as you would imagine. There’s not much to say about it, but it is not annoying or anything. There’s no music, but you can play your own music library without a problem.

Tags: tide river farm design, wordmix, words

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Rating:

• Price: $3.99 (Get It)
• Version: 1.1
• Developer: Imangi Studios

Version 2.0 Update: With the latest changes in the 2.0 update, Imangi now has different gameplay modes, global high score lists, and much more. Imangi is now the premier word puzzle game available in the App Store. The rating has been changed from 4 stars to 5 stars to reflect these changes.

There’s been no shortage of word puzzle games in the App Store since its opening. However, a few stand out, and Imangi is certainly one of them. Imangi is described as being similar to Scrabble with crossword puzzle elements. You slide rows and columns of letters on a 6×8 grid up and down, left and right with your finger, in the hope of lining up words. The more words you line up, the more points you score. To form words, you tap on the letters, and just like in crosswords puzzles, you can only form words up to down and left to right.

It sounds easy, but with four difficulty levels to choose from (Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced, and Expert), your vocabulary and spatial reasoning will be tested to its limits. Instructions are provided in-game, and on their website; learning how to play the game is easy, mastering it is going to be a challenge.

If you’re like me, and like to jump into a game you think you know how to play, you may want to read the instructions for Imangi. I dove in and didn’t know how to complete a game and submit my score. It wasn’t until I did read the directions that I learned that I had to double-tap on any green-lit word to end the game and submit my score to the in-game high-score list. An option in the menu to end the game and submit the score may help prevent confusion for others new to the game, diving right in.

During the course of the game, you can bring up a menu and choose to take a screenshot, which is saved in your Camera Roll (great for bragging rights.) There’s also an option to quit the game, without submitting your score. Once you do submit a score, you can type in your name to the high score list, which is only local. The website for Imangi Studios has a section where you can submit your own high scores and they post up the best ones, but eventually I’d like to see a global high score list, one for each difficulty level.

The graphics are pleasing to the eye. There’s no flashy 3D or fancy animation, it’s just words in tiles after all. However, it looks modern and stylish. The letters are big and easy to read, and the colors are all well selected and used.

Sound effects are really sparse, and some of them are quite tinny sounding, such as when selecting letters to form words. I would like to see a bit more sound effects used in the game, such as when sliding rows and columns around (perhaps a light clicking sound?) Note: I am hearing impaired, so this may have something to do with the sound not being more prominent.

When you end a game to submit your score, a series of animation goes into motion and the sound effects then are used to great effect. There is no music in-game, but you can use your own music library while playing. I’d highly encourage you to sync onto your iPhone/iPod Touch some soothing Chinese zen music just for this game.

As it stands now, there’s not much to the game except the single game mode. However, I was told by Imangi Studios that they plan for more game modes in future updates.

Tags: imangi, imangi studios, Puzzle, words