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May 31st, 2009 
Jared Brewer 
**WIN A COPY FREE**
99Games is back with another heaping of words and game! Is it as great as their first?
Wordulous ($0.99)
Wordulous is a new take on the old concept of TextTwist, which has its own iPhone app. While Text Twist is true to the original, Wordulous is something new. It just may want a name change. The jailbreak community will understand the confusion that I got when I was asked to review this game.
My Take
First with the name confusion. Wordulous is a great name. And nothing wrong with it. If it weren’t for Hackulous’ line of jailbreak apps and such that have negative connotations. Such as stealing applications. Installous and Crackulous are two such jailbreak app. This confused me immensely. I thought it was an iPhone dictionary plugin. Regardless, 99Games, please come up with a new name. It’ll be best for the business of this game.
Presentation
The graphics are simple, and well thought out. The game is set up as an elementary school look, and it’s fitting of the type of game and it’s a very consistent UI. The graphics are appropriate for the type of word game. In fact, all word games should adopt this look. It’s very smooth and looks nice. The SFX isn’t the best considering it’s possibly a 10 second WAV file on loop. It’s almost the same formula they did with WordsWorth.
Gameplay
Wordulous offers three modes of play: Examination, Practice and Challenge. Examination is the main mode where you get to continuously play against yourself and scores posted online. Practice is self explanatory while Challenge lets you challenge friends through Facebook or phone contacts.
The levels are nonexistant. You just play though a board and go to the next. The motivation to continue playing is in beating global and local high scores. Not all that much motivation to keep playing. A level system would be greatly appreciated. It also needs word groups, and definitions for words, two glaring lacking features.
The controls are blatant and simple. Tap a letter to select, and it goes to the word creation section. Tap the letter again to return it to the main box. Use the scramble button to mix up the letters. Placement of the buttons is odd. In practice, I often accidentally hit the ABC button which gives me a new board and new letters. That gets annoying, but the button doesn’t function in the main mode, so it’s really not a big deal. A simple switch of the scramble and ABC button would solve those issues. It’s difficult to critique controls in word games, since they have none.
Conclusion
All in all, it’s a new take on the old concept of Text Twist. Nice concept, nice application. The caveats are the small things that add up. Word games aren’t broadly appealing (apart from the runaway hits of Scrabble and Bookworm), and it’s the repetitiveness and limitations that are the downfall of most words game. Wordulous doesn’t offer anything drastically new. It’s well polished and put together in the molds of its 99Games predecessor (WordsWorth). If you’re a fan of WW, then without a doubt, grab Wordulous.
Contest
Simply comment below and tell us why you want the game. Closes June 3, 7PM.
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I’m a fan of word games… and have tried to find a good anagram game. So far the best has been TwistyText… but none have been stellar. This one looks promising, but I’ve been burned too many times to try again.
Would love a code! Thanks.
You know i have always been a fan of word games. Ever since i could talk i remember me and my dad would do crossword puzzles in the paper.My iphone is crammed with nothing, but word games. And to this day me and my dad still play word games together. I guess it woul be a lot cooler if we played them on my iphone. So good luck to everyone and god bless,
I would love to have a word game on my old touch. I have a lot of different games, but no word game yet. This would make mr a well rounded gamer.
I want the game because i like word games, i only have 1 on my iphone, and i like to get free promo codes!
I would love a code!
Hmm, so I guess that means Danny boy’s birthday bash is now void of the giveaway? Such a pity, he was my favorite.
I would like a copy of Wordulous because it looks pretty spiffy and I’m a nerd. I won my elementary school spelling bee, came second in my middle school spelling bee and was too lazy to try out for the high school spelling bee (but that’s beside the point..) Anyways, I’m just a farking nerd that likes words. End of story.
wow. what makes you think we only have access to one free code per game?
Really want this game. It looks great, and I am a word game geek. I already own their other word game, but this looks much better. The addition of online scoreboards and the elementary look has me won over. I really want a free copy!!
Nice review, but I agree. Name has to be changed.
This is a word game and I LOVE word games!!! Keeps my noggin active so I don’t go coocoo
I vote for a huge promo code giveaway for WWDC. superbad, make it happen!
Word games are a genre that is hard to screw up. It’s also a difficult genre to have widespread universal success with as well. It’s border line. It’s good for what it is. The name is definately a fail. I don’t really like word games all that much, but I tried to be unbiased. Multiplayer is something that would be great on this type of game, if done well.
Man, I love this type of game. I think it’s good brain exercise to try and figure out what words you can make from a set of letters.
Please, gimme gimme!!!!
Hi,
Thanks for that great review!!! Glad that you liked the look of the game. We thought the elementary school look would be perfect for a game like this. Regarding the drawbacks you mentioned, we are working on adding word groups and definition for words in the next update.So do make sure you check it out.
Cheers !!!