Reviews

Super Wild Wild Words

June 25, 2005

Super Wild Wild Words is based on an old favorite, Hangman, but it has quite a few twists and surprises in store. On the left side of the screen you’ll find the familiar gallows, along with a listing of letters so you can keep track of the letters you’ve guessed on the way to solving the puzzle. On the right side of the screen is the space where most of the action will take place, with letter tiles constantly falling from above. Make words out of those tiles by tapping on them in order. Unlike BookWorm (another Astraware game) the tiles do not have to touch each other in order to be formed into words. That makes it a bit easier, and less frantic— at least until the later levels, when things really start heating up.

Unlike traditional Hangman, you can’t just guess letters whenever you choose. Instead, you have to play the letter field strategically. You’ll see special playing pieces fall randomly, including Sheriff’s badges and small golden keys. When you use up all of the letter tiles under a special piece and it drops to the bottom of the playing field, you’ll either have the opportunity to guess a letter (if it was a badge) or have a letter filled in for you. More rarely you may see a bit of TNT; when it reaches the bottom of the screen it explodes and takes the bottom row of tiles with it. Get a medical kit and your hangman’s victim is healed once, which can be very handy if you can’t figure out what the hidden word is and you’re in danger of losing the game.

Even if you know what the puzzle is, you have to make words out of the letter tiles and get those badges to the bottom of the playing area in order to make a guess. Be careful though— if you guess wrong, you know what’s going to happen— one of the parts of your hangman’s “victim” is drawn in. Miss too many guesses and it’s game over! You’ll also lose the game if the letter tiles reach the top of the playing field. At the end of each level a summary screen shows how many points you got during the level, the number of guesses it took to get the secret word, and also tells you what the best word was.

The game started out rather slowly for me, which depending on my mood was either too slow or just relaxing and pleasant. As I mentioned though,. the tiles do start falling faster in later levels. This game isn’t particularly difficult, and could be fun for bright kids, especially since the puzzles are generally tied quite closely to the Western theme of the game. The graphics are very nice, and the sound effects are OK; I found them to be a bit annoying and turned them off. There isn’t any background music, just sound effects when certain things happen in the game, like tiles dropping, a single guitar chord when you guess a letter right, or of course an explosion if you get some TNT.

If you like word games, you’ll probably enjoy this new twist on an old favorite. I find myself choosing it when I’m in the mood to waste a little time but don’t want something particularly frantic. Super Wild Wild Words is available now for Palm OS and Windows Mobile devices for $19.95 at the Astraware web site.

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