iAppLover

You put words and Mahjong together you get something called WordJong. Well, that doesn’t quite explain itself. You take the good old Mahjong Scrabble setup and throw in into Scrabble waters and you get WordJong. For people with a casual itch and an iPhone, this is probably want you want on your mobile phone.

First off, WordJong is pretty straightforward – which incidentally, doesn’t win it too many points. It presumes a little too much. It presumes that you exactly what you’re getting into and that you know what Mahjong Solitaire. It throws you into the deep end, assuming you know how to float and a lot of people really, really don’t know how to float in WordJong.

A tutorial would have made this entire game a lot less frustrating. Sure, an ingame instruction manual is there, but it is not really that helpful. However, once you get past this significant hump it’s actually a fun game. Spell a word with the available tiles, except the tiles aren’t on Scrabble rack, but on a Mahjong Solitaire setup. It takes its point cue from Scrabble, with more different letters, putting more into the bank when you use them successfully. Luckily, the dictionary in the game is pretty robust, catching onto some pretty obscure words. Like any word game, sometimes adding suffixes and prefixes leads to some rejected words, but that hardly ever happens.

Replay value for WordJong is immense. There’s an achievement system, so for people who are really into the Xbox360’s achievement system, they can find it in WordJong. A 100 point word can give you a medal.

Another potential gripe for WordJong is that it offers next to no hint system. Check that – there is no hint system out there. If you’ve got one last stack of letters to play with and no idea what to do with them, you’ll be stuck there. The game ends if there are no more words to make out but if there’s a word out there to be formed, no matter how obscure the word is, the game trucks on.

Wordjong is a creative version and variation of word games around the world. It’s amazingly addictive and with the number of modes available to keep it interesting and a worthy addition to any iPhone. Again, if there’s any stumbling block for WordJong, it’s its disdain for newbies. It just isn’t a friendly game for amateurs, especially if they don’t have any friends to teach them. Otherwise, it’s a fun game that’ll eat a lot of time and exercise your vocabulary as well.

Wurdle App Game

I like playing games on my iPhone.  I’m the kind of person who needs constant mental stimulation and that makes me fairly picky when it comes to figuring out what to do while I’m on the subway train or during a particularly lonely lunch break. Crosswords used to be my thing – now, word games like Wurdle have taken its place.

Wurdle is one of the latest in a long line of word games that include the now dated Text Twist. It is puzzle game, similar to Boggle in spirit and design – letters are arranged on an adjustable grid and it’s up to you to find as many words as you can in a preset amount of time, which can be anywhere from one minute to three minutes. There’s even a world wide scoreboard for people who’re fairly competitive – I particularly enjoy this as every now and then I develop a competitive streak of my own.

Now, playing the game itself is fairly simple – simply run your finger along the set of letters that form a legal word and the point value for that word is added to your score for the round.  Shaking your iPhone or iPod touch scrambles the offered letters, giving outs for people who just don’t dig the current set of letters.

Graphically, it’s the sort of thing you’d expect from ancient gaming consoles or a rudimentary pc, but word games are rarely known for their flashy looks after all.

The sounds for Wurdle are subtle, minimalistic and yet, quite effective. Each time you select a letter, a sound is played and when the more letters you choose, the higher the pitch of the sound, lending a sort of build-up and progression – a minute reward that can turn a good game into an addictive one.

Wurdle costs only $1.99, which fits its pros and cons.  The cons of Wurdle are largely due to the fact that it is, at the end of the day, yet another search for words game with a slightly different interface and scoring system.  It’s a fairly enjoyable one of course and one that you can get tremendous mileage out of considering the price, but still a board game.

If you’re looking for something fun to play and somewhat educational to boot, like I was, this is a good buy and a good addition to any iPhone’s repertoire.  If you’re bored of whatever word games you have on your phone, this is a good way of entertaining yourself.  It’s kept me busy for many, many hours.