We made mention of Polyhegrams a few months ago. It's a Windows Phone game from LateNight Apps that was developed through the AppCampus and it just went live in the Windows Phone Store.
For those not familiar, the AppCampus is a joint venture between Microsoft, the Aalto University of Finland and Nokia to promote quality platform development of apps such as Polyhegrams, Dark Lands, and Project Tripod.
Polyhegrams is a word game for our Windows Phones and represents the efforts of the AppCampus in stellar fashion. You have several gaming options but the general gist of things has you building words from letters scattered about a three-dimensional, multi-sided object. The game can be rather challenging, frustrating and overall an entertaining experience. If you like word games, Polyhegrams may very well be a must have title for your Windows Phone gaming library.
The main menu for Polyhegrams has options for Single Player games, online Multi-player games, Timed Games, Head to Head games (more on these in a second), as well as options to view your gaming achievements (awards) and view the tutorial. Just rotate the 3D cube to pick your poison.
Polyhegrams Settings and Single Player Game
Up under the three dot menu on the main page you will find options to view the help page, send feedback to the developer, rate the app, view the about and access the settings. Settings cover sound, music, and touch sensitivity levels as well as turning on/off hints, location and live tile.
Each game option is slightly different but the concept is fairly consistent. You have a floating, 3D shape, the polyhegram if you will, that has letters on each side. You rotate and tap the letters to create words. The game modes break down as follows:
Single Player Game: This is a multi-level game where you are given a clue to what the letters on the object creates. Your job, build the word as quickly as possible. The Single Player game follows a storyline and has hundreds of puzzles to solve with each level getting more challenging than the last.
Multi-player Game: This game is a lot like Wordament but instead of having a 4x4 grid of letters to build words from, you have a multi-sided object full of letters to work off of. Letters used to build a word must be adjacent to each other and you try to build as many words as possible within the time limit. Longer words earn more points and at the end of the round, your scores are ranked against the other players.
Polyhegrams Multi-Word, Boggle, and Word Search Games
Timed Game: Here you have a few options, all played under the clock (represented by a ring of fire that slowly closes in on your polyhegram). You have a Multi-word game where you have to find a given word, its opposite or a similar word on the polyhegram. The Boggle game is a single player version of the Multi-player game. The Word Search game has you finding a specific word on the polyhegram. The Surprise Me game is just that, a random assortment of spelling tasks. From the Timed Game menu you have a difficulty meter that you can adjust to keep the games from becoming too easy.
Head to Head: The Boggle styled game played head to head against on online opponent or a local opponent over WiFi using a local network.
As you can tell, there is a lot of gaming involved with Polyhegrams. Plenty to keep the game from getting stale. Graphics are appealing, game play challenging and overall, Polyhegrams puts a little life back into Windows Phone word games with it's unique approach to the game board.
The screen sensitivity can be a little touchy but you can fine tune that in the game's settings. The only real nit I can find with Polyhegrams deals with correcting a misspelled word. If you make a spelling mistake, there's no "backspace" function other than swiping to the left to erase the entire word. This can be frustrating but adds to the challenge when you're racing the clock. Still, a back button to erase the last letter put into play would be nice.
If you like word games but feel they've gotten a little monotonous or are looking for a challenging word game to add to your Windows Phone, Polyhegrams is a must try. It may drive you nuts but in a challenging way.
There is a free trial version available for Polyhegrams that has some gaming limitations. The full version is currently running $1.49 and you can find Polyhegrams here in the Windows Phone Store. It is available for both Windows Phone 8 and 7.x devices.
