Letter Bug Review

If there is one genre on the iPhone that’s over flowing with games its the word based puzzle genre, and for ever good game there is there are probably 10 bad ones. We at appVersity have played many and would like to think we bring you the best of them and today it’s no different Presenting Letter Bug. Letter bug is a challenging, competitive and extremely fun game for puzzle fans. The objective is simple. Tap letters on the screen to form words. Longer words score more points.

The premises is simple but when you add a countdown timer and a target score meter that must be reached to continue you have the making of a thought provoking highly challenging game experience.

As you begin to form words from the available letters on the screen additional layers of letters will slowly fade into the foreground and be in play. Letters can only be used once and if you manage to use the colored letters you will score additional points and unlock power-ups. These power-ups can offer bonus scoring as well as additional time, or additional shuffles. These power-ups can be combined as well.

If the word is not recognized the letters will be placed back into the pool and any newly added letters will fade back into the background. Letters can be removed by clicking on the back button on the lower right of the screen.

If you are unable to make any word from the letters on the screen you can shuffle the layers by shaking the iPhone or iTouch. However you need to use these shuffles sparingly as you only get a limited number of these which are indicated by the yellow dots along the top of the screen. The good thing about shuffling is any letters you have already added to your word column will remain in tact. So if you have appVersit spelled and your missing the Y you can shuffle the letters and hopefully a Y will appear.

If you are unable to make any more words and still have time remaining on the clock you can press the pause button on the upper left and choose end round. Your score will be tallied and if you beat the target score you can advance!

There are three levels of gameplay included. Playthrough which is the meat and potatoes of the game each lever requires higher scores while the time to complete these are lowered.

Score attack will allow you to compete for the highest score possible on any level you have completed in the past offering 3 different levels of difficulty.

While challenge mode consistently raised the score bar as you advance in an endless wave of letters.

There is a local high score leaderboard, but in my opinion all these word games need global leaderboards to keep players competing longer.

Graphically the game is good. Each level has different backgrounds, and the letters are slightly animated moving back and forth. I saw nothing wrong with the way the game looks.

Audio wise the game is lacking any music, however ever letter pressed, shuffled, submitted or incorrectly entered will result in a different sound, and the aforementioned countdown timer dinging as each second ticks away under 10 seconds is enough to send you into a wording frenzy trying to just get one more score!

In the end I have to admit I was not looking forward to this game, another puzzle game been there, done that, but I was pleasantly surprised at the depth and challenge this game presented. If your a fan of these type of puzzle games or just looking for a fun but challenging brain game. This is a great addition to your collection.

The Good

Challenging Gameplay
Multiple Levels of Play
Power-ups

The Bad

No online Leader Board
Lack of in game background music

Related posts:

1. Wordology Review
2. Stitchem Words
3. Moxie Review

Tagged as: alphabetic, iPhone, itouch, word puzzle