Like word games? How about number puzzles? Wordscape from Atabow offers both for your Windows Phone. Wordscape is a collection of three games (PopLets, PopNums, and Crossword) that will challenge not only your wordsmith abilities but also your arithmetic skills.
From Wordscape's main menu you can access either of the three games, an illustrated help guide or the app's Marketplace listing where you can post a review of the game. You can also mute the sound effects of the game from the main menu.
Drift on past the break to learn about the three games within Wordscape.
PopLets
PopLets feels like a cross between Tetris and Boggle. Before you enter the game you'll have a settings screen that will highlight the leading scores, the minimum number of letters per word for the level you're on and a slider that will regulate how fast or slow your letters drop. From here all you need to do is tap "Click to Play" and you'll be sent to the playing field.
Once the game starts, letters will begin falling from the top of the screen and your goal is to create words from these letters. Just tap on the letters to create the word and tap "Click to Pop" to remove the letters from the playing grid. As you create your word, it is displayed at the top of the playing field. The game ends when a column of letters reaches the top of the screen.
As your score increases, so does your level of play. The speed of the letters falling won't increase but the minimum number of letters you need to use per word will.
PopNums
PopNums follows the same gaming concept as PopLets except instead of creating words, you choose falling numbers to form one of four sum totals that appear at the top of the screen.
Before entering the playing field, as with PopLets, you'll see a settings screen where you can set the falling rate, view the high scores, and view the requirements for how many numbers you need to use to match the values for the level you're playing at. As you progress through the levels, the minimum number of letters will increase.
The designated values are highlighted in green at the top of the screen and you can choose any of the four to match. An arithmetic equation will appear as you build it at the top of the screen as well. Once you've matched one of the designated values tap "Click to Pop" to pop the numbers.
As with PopLets, the game ends when one of the columns reaches the top of the screen.
Crosswords
Crosswords is much like the puzzles you'll find in the Sunday Paper. Clues to words are at the bottom of the screen and to navigated to a particular word just tap on the clue or the location on the puzzle. When you are ready to complete the word, just tap on the blank square and your keyboard will appear.
If your stumped and need help, you do have the option to solve the word. You also can navigate around the various puzzles with the "previous" and "next" buttons. To the top right corner there is a cloud icon that you can tap to save your progress with any one puzzle.
Game Play
I found PopLets and PopNums to be entertaining, challenging and mildly addictive games. Crosswords is what you would expect from a crosswords puzzle, nothing more and nothing less. Compared to the faster paced PopLets and PopNums, Crosswords comes close to being boring.
While the game itself was stable with no bugs, crashes or glitches experiences it was slow to load. I'm not sure if it's pulling data from a server, the banner ads or just the design but it took an unusually long time to go from the main menu to actual game screens. It's not enough to make you run screaming for the hills but it is noteworthy.
Overall Impression
I liked Wordscape. I could have lived without the Crosswords game but PopLets and PopNums games make up for the vanilla feel of the Crosswords game.
I would have like to have seen the speed of the numbers/letters falling progressively increase as you advance through the games. However, requiring more letters and numbers as you advance through the levels isn't a bad way to keep things interesting.
Wordscape is a free game (ad banner supported) and if you like word or number puzzles, it is well worth the download. You can find Wordscape here (opens Zune) at the Marketplace.
