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Wurdle is a word puzzle that has you dragging your fingers across connecting letters to form words. The longer the word is, the greater the points. Each round can be set to last 1 minute, 2 minutes, or 3 minutes. At the end of the round, the total score is added to the scoreboard. There are both a local scoreboard and a global scoreboard, with a Top 500 list available at the developer’s website. Wurdle challenges your vocabulary and spatial reasoning abilities. A similar game to Wurdle that I reviewed is Imangi, although the mechanics are different.
As soon as you load up the game, you’re plunged straight into a round. In the bottom right corner is a button to go into the settings for the game. In there you’ll be able to read instructions on how to play Wurdle, change the colors of the tiles (Sunset, Red, Grey, Yellow, Orange, Blue, Green, Pink, or a picture available in your iPhone’s Camera Roll), turn on/off sound effects, length of time per round (1:00, 2:00, 3:00), board grid size (4×4, 5×5, 6×6, 7×7, or 8×8), minimum word length (3, 4, or 5), and dictionary to use (TWL – used for official Scrabble tournaments in USA, Canada, Thailand, and Israel, or SOWPODS – used for Scrabble tournaments in other English-speaking countries.) Finally, you can check out the online scores which takes you to the above linked webpage.
To play, you simply use your fingers to select the letters, then slide it across connecting letters to form a word. You can go in any direction; up, down, left, right, diagonal. The screen flashes when a recognized word is formed, and when you release your finger, it’ll submit the word to the list of words you’ve found so far in that particular round. To scramble the board, you simply shake your iPhone/iPod Touch and it’ll rearrange the tiles so you can find more words.
After a round completes, you’re presented with your total score, type your name in, longest word for that round, and the option whether or not to submit your score online to the global scoreboard. Then you’re presented with a list of your top scores for that round length, and the longest words you’ve discovered overall. Currently my longest word is bistro.
The graphics are pleasing to the eyes. It’s not flashy or 3D, but it works well. The selection of different colored tiles are nice, and the ability to use any photo from your Camera Roll is a great touch. At the bottom of the board is a digital sheet of paper that looks slightly crumpled, where words you’ve found are added. Personally I’m not fond of the crumpled paper look, it just looks amateurish against all the polished tiles. An update to allow for different backgrounds to be chosen would be a nice thing to have.
The sound, while minimal, works very well when dragging your finger across letters. The more letters you choose, the sound changes pitch. It’s subtle, but effective. There’s no music, but you can play your own music when loading up the game.
Wurdle is a great word puzzle game that has an incredible amount of replay value. Wurdle is about as perfect as a word puzzle on the iPhone/iPod Touch can get. It loads up fast and gets you playing right away, has a lot of options to choose from, and is easy and fun to play.
Tags: semi secret software, word, wurdle
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