We hope you guys are enjoying Word War Week so far! For the third part of our series, we present you Syed Jafri’s first offering for the iPhone… Stitch ‘Em Words!

Stitch ‘Em Words ($1.99)

Part Chicktionary, part Scrabble, part Text Twist, part word charade but 100% fun, exciting and challenging! For a first effort, we were extremely surprised of the quality and fun we got from this very inexpensive game. It has all the elements of a great game and tonight, we are going to disect each one of them…

The Challenge: The Workaround For A Small Gamescreen

We were very skeptical when we first got the game since the iPhone has such a small screen and being able to fit all of the pictures, controls, scores and hints necessary for one level would be a hell of a job. Sure enough! Syed pulled it off, and the interface looks VERY lovely.

The upper half of the screen (blue little squares and circles) holds the word puzzles you need to solve. The bottom half of the screen contains the letter and pictures you have to work with to solve the puzzles. Circles are for letters while squares are for the pictures. You tap the symbols and hit STITCH IT! to give solving one puzzle a shot. The longer the word combination is, the higher the points of course. You can hit Shuffle to rearrange the letters if the brain starts to get rusty (;p).

A 3-Hint system is also creatively added in which you can use hints up to three times per level. Keep the hint options intact and you earn bonus points. Double tapping on the small pictures maximize them for a better guess at the object.

Bonus Level, End Level, and Funky Soundtrack

After finishing a certain amount of levels, a Bonus Level screen comes up. You are given ONE fairly long word/phrase to solve against time. The sooner you complete it, the bigger the bonus points.

The game has a level points bar at the far right corner. When you fill this bar up, the Give Up button turns into End Level which should take you to the next level.

The fascinating gameplay and  bonus additions are not the only things to look out for. The game also comes with a funky soundtrack (although looped) is not irritating and even enhances your mood to keep playing.

Did Someone Say TIPS?

The game gets fairly challenging as words and possible tile combinations list get longer. But here are some helpful steps (SAVE those Hints!!!):

1. Do the words comprised of Circles first. Circles = letters so this should be pretty straightforward.
2. When pictures look confusing, often times the levels come with two square word combinations, so simply try different combinations and you’ll reveal two picture names!

What’s To Come?

An update has been submitted to fix some minor bugs BUT look forward to these updates sometime in February:

1. Add 200 Levels
2. Difficulty Selection
3. Math Challenge Bonus Round
4. Leaders Board

Suggestions:

Have the End Level button appear with animation or sound as you fill the bar. The arrow goes a little unnoticeable sometimes. Let us accumulate unused HINTS please! (Lol). Help screen needs some navigation changes. Maybe slide to change screen instead of hitting a button, or at least make the button bigger. Change the icon: make the text a little bigger and remove the picture clutter a little bit.

The game at its current price and set of features is a HIGHLY respectable first effort. We anticipate the big February update and more games from Syed!

Screenshots: