Boggle [rating: 4/5]
EA Mobile has brought yet another classic game to the iPhone/iPod Touch and this time it’s Boggle the word game where the aim of the game is to spell as many words as you can in 3 minutes.
TICK-TOCK…BEAT THE CLOCK…
Once you start you just can’t stop!Test your way with words with the popular word-search game that’s addictive fun-on-the-run!
In the original game a plastic box would be filled with 16 dice with letters on each side and to generate your random letters you would shake the box and the letters to use in the game would be those that land face up.
A simple premise and EA have kept the simplicity while modernizing the game in this incarnation for the iPhone. Launching Classic Mode, (just one of the 4 modes you can choose from), opens your virtual plastic box and just like the real game all it takes to start the game is a quick shake, (a simple but nice touch especially for those who have played the original), for your dice to shake and fall into place.
As soon as they fall into place your 3 minutes start and the aim is to find as many words of 3 letters or more in chains. This means that the letters of any word you spell must be next to each other, either horizontally, vertically or diagonally and selecting the words couldn’t be easier. Firstly you can simply tap each letter in turn and then click on the tick when you’ve spelled your word, or for a quicker way to bang out your words simple drag your finger over the letters from the first to last and when you release on the final letter the word will be submitted. The controls are fluid and enable you to submit the words as quickly as your minds see them.
This alone would be enough for most Boggle and word play fans but EA has bundled in 3 other versions of the game too. First there is Advanced mode where not only can you adjust the time limit but also enable trick letter moves where letters will switch and jump around either increasing the number of words available or spoiling planned words depending on your view point. Self Score mode allows you to use the app version of Boggle in the classic way were there are no timers and it’s just you or you and your friends finding words for fun.
The next mode is where EA have dropped the ball. Challenge mode is EA’s version of multi-player but instead of offering real-time multi-player you can only challenge people via email. When you send your email to your challenger and they open it on their iPhone or iPod Touch there will be a link to open up the game and attempt to beat your score, and that’s it, it doesn’t even let you know if they beat your score. Boggle could have got a 5 out 5 but the lack of a substantial multi-player mode takes a whole mark off of the score.
The game does look great though and if you like stats this is the game for you too, from the sublime Longest Word or Number of Words Found to the ridiculous, Favorite Orientation or Total Bad Guesses. It would have been nice to have been able to compare your stats with others but just as with the lack of a multi-player option this has been ignored too.
Overall Boggle is a great game and if your a fan of word puzzles then you can’t go wrong with this classic title.
The Good
- Perfect adaptation of Boggle
- Simple method to add words
- Single player addictive fun
The Not So Good
- Poor multi-player option
- No social media integration
Reviewed By: Craig Willis
Boggle for iPhone: Screenshots
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