Since letters on the border have fewer neighbors, and therefore fewer opportunities to join in words, it’s not uncommon for one or both sides to be the highest towers on the board. An even better example is the effect of Q, J, X and Z and five-plus-letter words. The restriction to words not already used, for example, pushes the player to broaden his or her active vocabulary and inherently limits the length of a game (though the ratio of black blocks and numbered blocks also increases over time, accelerating this).
What makes SpellTower shine is the way simple restrictions create interesting emergent patterns. Rush, by far my favorite mode, adds news rows at a constant rate (subtly but effectively tracked by a thin bar along the side of the field of play). Puzzle and the similar, but more difficult, Ex Puzzle add a row of letters whenever a word is matched. SpellTower has four play modes: Tower, Puzzle, Ex Puzzle and Rush. All of this is conveyed clearly in a brief tutorial. Finally, letters can have a number in the corner–such letters can only be used in words of that many letters or more. Words of five or more letters clear each letter adjoining the word. Some squares are black–these disappear when adjacent letters disappear. Q, J, X and Z are such difficult letters that if you make any word with them, the entire row in which they occur disappears. Words must be at least three letters long, and may not have been used previously. You make words by linking letters in any direction, including diagonally. Simplicity rules the day everywhere in SpellTower: clean presentation, minimal but satisfying sounds and a short ruleset. The particular tweaks to this basic formula allow some wonderful dynamics to emerge. Zach Gage’s SpellTower marries Bookworm’s Boggle-style word finding with Tetris-like pressure to clear tiles.
A simple word puzzle game that works in every way.
0 kommentar(er)
