Wordox

If you're looking for a game that will change your brain as much as your senses, the vocabulary-based puzzle game Wordox might be right up your alley. While it may resemble popular multiplayer experiences like Scrabble and Words For Friends from a cursory glance, don't let that turn you off. While the board may look the same as those tried and true word games, Wordox manages to carve out its own identity in the puzzle game market.

The core premise here will feel pretty familiar to anyone who's played Words With Friends or Scrabble before. The playing area consists of a nine by nine square board, and players take turns placing letters on that board to increase their score count. But that's where the similarity ends. Scrabble is a game that benefits players with large vocabularies, but it's just as much a game of strategy and book keeping. Making the most of your high value tokens, maximizing your payout with the bonus squares on the board, and blocking the opposition from getting high multipliers is critical, and these simple mechanics all combine to create a game that can feel complex in the same way that chess is.

Wordox is exceedingly more fast paced, and while its mechanics are more simplified, that creates an experience that's more about board control than it is about tallying up points in your ledger. That's accentuated by the smaller board space. While Wordox's big brothers use a 15 X 15 board, Wordox employs one that's only 9 X 9. With less real estate to work on, players are going to be bumping heads more readily and much earlier in the game. One of the most notable changes is that none of the letters here have numerical values. Each token is worth the same value, and players are working towards a grand total of 25. The major wrinkle here is the ability to steal letters from other players. Creating new words that criss-cross those of other players allows you to increase your score at their expense. Combined with the smaller boards, this can result in fierce competition. Another alteration comes in the fact that all the letters come from a shared pool. Poaching letters before other players can use them is an important strategy absent in other games. Players will also spend their time working towards the vortexes at the corners of the board that can create a fresh new slate.

This is a game built for head to head multiplayer, and the developer has made getting into a game easy. You can either play a quick match where missing human opponents will be filled in by computer opponents or create your own lobbies where you can invite friends and family to private matches. A currency system limits how many times you can play, but your total regenerates daily, and players are rewarded their bets back when they win a game.

Pros:

• A fast paced alternative to the traditional Scrabble experience
• Offers a quick and visceral approach to multiplayer gaming
• Shared letter pool means everyone's on equal footing

Cons:

• Currency system limits how often you can play
• No asynchronous play options available

- Bugs fixed

Happy gaming!