Review: Bubble Girl Pops WordPop and Farkle Dice

WORDPOP

Word Pop is a delightful twist on the popular game, Boggle. Your goal is to make words of 2 or more letters from adjacent letters still, but as you make them, the tiles disappear. The goal of each level is to remove all the letters, leaving a clear board for the next round. If you get stuck with letters unable to be made into words, it's game over. Valid words cannot be abbreviations, hyphened words, acronyms, contractions or pronouns. Acceptable words will change to bold text in the entry bar. At the same time, green tick will become highlighted and the chime sound as you select tiles will raise in pitch. Click the green tick to enter the word you've made and remove the tiles involved.

...however, that isn't all there is to it. They have added another twist of bonus tiles. Large word scores and game difficulty level will determine how many you earn. Each tile is scored similar to Scrabble, each adding up into a score. If the score is high enough (40+ points in easy mode, 50+ in Medium, or 60+ in hard) you will receive a bonus tile, which could be another letter or a wildcard tile. If you have more than three, a letter tile will be changed to a wildcard. If you have tiles left, they will carry over to the next level.

What if you're still stuck? Rotate it! The board will rotate, allowing you more options with your tiles. Press the round arrow button and watch your letters change places.

What I love most about this game is the separate scoreboard for highest ever word scores. You still have an Easy, Medium and Hard scoreboard, but you can also keep your best word creations in check too.

This has become my new word game obsession!

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FARKLE

Do you feel lucky?

Farkle is a developed style of Yahtzee, based more on luck and choice. 2-6 players (computer or human) roll six dice in the hope of rolling certain number combinations. However, in this game, you are aiming to earn the most points.

Possible point-scoring combinations are:

1 x 5s = 50

1 x 6s = 100
3x2s=200

3x3s=300

3x4s=400

3x5s=500

3x6s=600

3x1s=1000
3 pairs = 500

Straight (all 6 dice) = 100

Farkle earns a new category of its own, as you can choose to keep the score you have and pass, or continue rolling. Once all 6 dice are used, you can choose to try your luck again and roll your six dice again. The trick is to stop before you roll without earning points. Failing to score means your turn is over and any score you have banked up disappears -- called getting Farkle. As the entire object of the game is to earn 10,000 points before the other players, you want to play on as much as possible, but you do not want to Farkle either. If you get 3 Farkles in consecutive shots, you lose 1,000 points. Strategy is very much part of this game, also. Consider using just a 5 or 1 in a roll to leave better odds for the next.

Once a player has reached over 10,000 (or 5,000 depending on game selections) they have finished the game. Other players now have one chance to score higher. If they do, they win the game.

Farkle has been kept simple in graphics and sounds, but to great benefit. The game remains the focus, allowing players to concentrate on the action and strategies.

The board is well set out, with a large scoreboard to place score and Farkle count in a well-spotted position. (The cute xylophone riff as music really endeared me, too.)

The controls are as thought out. Players can do all that's required with one tap on the correct dice or button. No fussing with dragging or double tapping.

Great for PDA beginners.

Try these games at Smart Box Design

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