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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.

The iPhone brings with it the ability to play flash based word games on the road – just what a nerd like me needs. Maybe you’re in a family that loves word games, classics like scrabble. Perhaps you do crosswords. If you want to use your iPhone to exercise your brain, Wordsworth is the game that you’re looking for. As a typical word game, it does a lot to alleviate the boredom and of course, exercise the mind.

Much like Bookworm, another word game that’s eaten up countless hours around the world, it’s about making words out of a random assortment of letters. Your screen is filled with letters in a honeycomb layout and from there, you select letters so you can make that word. It follows the standard convention of longer is better, along with the added bonus of giving more points if you use difficult letters. You need to get a certain number of before you can move on to a new honeycomb of letters.

For $2, it’s not such a bad deal. It only sounds easy, the way the concept of a crossword or Scrabble seems simple. Then you actually try it and you realize, it’s not the walk in the park that it looks like on paper. Most words are actually too short to add to your point score or mileage. Some bonus tiles come up, tiles that offer extra points but only for a limited amount of time. Shuffling the honeycomb is an option you just need if you really want a new setup. Despite the presence of those timed tiles, it’s not really a game that pushes the bar time wise – it’s more a game that kills time rather than stresses it.

While the iPhone is getting a lot of game apps for it, it was never really meant for that purpose. Controls for most iPhone games can get very, very frustrating, very, very fast. Fortunately, Wordsworth is one with sharp controls. You can tap the letters or just sweep your finger across the group of letters that turn into a word. Too many apps walk around the control scheme, focusing on looks – Wordsworth seems to have been designed for the iPhone itself, making the controls smooth and easy to use.

If anything, the real problem with Wordsworth is its laid back atmosphere. It’s much like the crossword – you’re not looking to get pushed into any thinking sprees. For people who like that sort of game, Wordsworth works out. As addictive as the game is, it’s not for the competitive or even people who want to brag about a high score.

Aside from all these little details, Wordsworth remains a game that’s worth a quick look. For people who are sick of all the match three games running around and want a different kind of word game to play with, this is definitely worth the money.