4 stars (Great Word Game) - Bookworm Deluxe is a game set in a library, and features a grid of tan colored Scrabble-like tiles. The object is to click on adjacent letters in order to form words that can be "chomped" by the bookworm.
While this may sound easy, there's a twist: burning tiles are added to the board. If you don't use these burning tiles before they hit bottom, the whole library burns down! (Game over, in other words.)
You score points based on the length of each word, the scarcity of letters in the word, whether or not there are any reward tiles in the word, and what level of the game you're on.
Green tiles appear randomly and, if used, increase the word score. If you make words using 5 or more letters, you earn a gold tile. Use the gold tile and you earn even MORE points!
Below the Bookworm is a bonus word; if you make this word, you get a hefty bonus!
Sound too tame to you? Well, in addition to the Classic Game, you can choose the Action Game option. In Action Game mode, burning tiles are dropped into the grid at an alarming pace--and will burn through the letters whether you make a move or not!
Players earn whimsical titles such as Scribe, Librarian and Editor. You can quit the game and resume it at your leisure. There is also a Hall of Fame which records Top Scores, Best Words (those earning the most points) and Longest Words. For example, I earned 2520 for spelling "nougat", which is my personal best point-wise.
This is a great word game, but a word of caution: when I bought this game for Windows XP, the screen said that I only had a 6 minute demo. I'm like "What?!" So I emailed the company and it turns out that you'll need a universal patch in order to "unlock" the game. (If you need the patch, it's http://beta.popcap.com/pubfiles/PopCDFix.exe)
This is a shame, in my opinion, because an individual who is not web-savvy may be clueless as to how to get the game to work--and may give up altogether. Not only that, some individuals buy games to play offline--and don't use the internet. Those folks receiving this as a gift--or buying it in a store--would be out of luck if they didn't have an internet connection.
Bookworm Deluxe is an addictive game to pass the time, especially if you love word games.
1 stars (No Bang for the Buck) - Very disappointed in the game. For $20 I expected more variation to the game. Nothing extravagant, just more colors or more ways to play the game. Only one way to play and you just keep going up levels, but they are not harder. I feel like I wasted my money on this game. the reviews made it seem so fun.
5 stars (Truly addictive game!) - Do not start playing this game unless you have hours of free time to kill. I bought this for my husband and myself--I haven't gotten a chance to play it yet because is he always doing so.
He installed it one evening and 9:00 p.m. and then stayed up until midnight two nights in a row playing it. Finally, after a week he was able to ration himself.
Some of the words you can form in the game are not Scrabble safe words, but, like in Scrabble, no proper names are allowed so be careful. |
