iPhone App: Word Tower

June 18th, 2009

= 4 stars

Word puzzle game where you spell words from falling tiles.

The Good

A neat combination of word search (Wurdle) and falling blocks (Shivering Kittens). Trace your finger over the tiled letters to spell words. A correctly spelled word of three letters or more removes those blocks and earns points. New blocks steadily fall from the top of the screen. You can move falling blocks by touching and dragging, adding a bit of strategy as their placement can help you spell words. Once a block touches the bottom of a column, it can only be removed by using it in a word or passing the level.
Special blocks add variety: a snowflake lets you shake the iPhone and shuffle existing letters, while a brick can’t be removed and its letter is limited to use in four letter words. Lastly, levels are passed by landing a lock block adjacent to a key block – meaning a clear pathway to either must be maintained. Also adding variety are four levels of difficulty, including “Genius” in which all your words must contain four letters or more, and the blocks fall at a much faster rate.
The end result is like playing two games simultaneously: if you concentrate too hard on the word spelling part, the block falling quickly gets out of control. Mentally flipping between the two tasks is a fun challenge.
Neat trick: Rotate the iPhone 180 degrees to flip the entire game upside down. All the blocks fall accordingly, giving your grid of letters a different arrangement.

The Bad

Graphics and sound effects could use a little extra polish.
Literal “hanging” when dragging the blocks around – they occasionally get stuck in mid-air for a few moments and then resume falling.

Conclusion

While slightly derivative, Word Tower’s combination of word search and falling blocks actually creates a compelling variation on the genre. This combination just works, like peanut butter and chocolate. Recommended.

iTunes App Store Link: