Game Summary

Bookworm is a puzzle game from the glory days of PopCap Games. The game consists of a board filled with letter tiles. Your goal is to make words by linking touching letter tiles together. Once a word is formed, those tiles are gobbled up by the titular Bookworm, and tiles fall to fill the gaps. Longer words are worth more points, and making them rewards you with bonus green, gold, and diamond tiles which are worth even more points. The risk of your game ending comes in the form of burning tiles. They appear with more frequency as the game goes on and each turn (word made) they burn the tile below them. If they reach the bottom, it's game over. It's simple, addictive, and easy to put down and come back to.

Review Portion

Similar to Picross, I'm not sure how to rate a game with such singular purpose. I believe a game's ratings should reflect what the game is trying to do. A story driven epic should have its writing put under much more scrutiny than an arcade light gun game. This is a puzzle game, and it does that job extremely well. That being said, the game does what it does well, but there is some room for criticism.

There is one and only mode; the main game. It makes the game great for playing in bursts, but if feeling burnt out and looking to get some variety, you're out of luck. Given the nature of the game, some sort of puzzle mode where you try to eliminate target tiles in as few turns as possible or a frantic mode where burning tiles fall in intervals of real time instead of by turn could have been welcome additions. While I find the music charming, there is exactly one track in the game that plays on a loop. It obviously gets old fairly quickly. The game does give you the option to turn off the music and still have the sound effects, which seems strange, but I guess the option is nice.

Summary

The game does what it does very well, but don't expect anything more.

Personal score: 9.5/10

"Objective" score: 8/10