Review: Murray from Palm-Mac Plays Word Monaco

Murray Alexander of Palm-Mac reviews Word Monaco Solitaire for Windows Mobile.


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Word Monaco
Thanks to Todd Sherman at Smart Box Design for letting me try out a couple of games. The first one I had a go at is Word Monaco for WM5. This is card game of sorts, similar to Solitaire, with a huge twist...you are trying to make words with the cards as you would with Scrabble. So, the best way to describe it would be to call it Scrabitaire...that's a direct cross between Scrabble and Solitaire.

I have to own up here. I have always loved card games and therefore I am going to be somewhat biased. I just feel they lend themselves ideally to the smaller screen format of our pda's and smartphones. This game is no exception.

There are three different skill levels. The easy one is a good start to break you in gently as it includes 2 random jokers that can be used as any letter. To win you have to make words in all columns and have no unturned cards left. When you have made a word a small green diamond appears at the top of the column to signify success. You can move whole words or letters to other columns to make words in that one or to enable a new card to be turned over. Letters can be placed without an actual word being formed as long as the letters might lead to a word....so for example, you could leave SH on a column but not TT. Sounds easy? It is pretty straight forward on easy level but once you move up to medium and hard things become much harder.


This is the sort of game that you start off thinking, I'll just have a quick 5 minutes and then 45 minutes later you're still playing away. It demands a bit of concentration and use of the old grey matter. There are no time limits and you can come back to the game later on...these are features I always like to see as I hate games where there is some sort of timer involved. Basically, you can play at your own pace which suits me down to the ground.

There are three different versions of the game with slightly different aims but the basic premise is the same. It's easy to pick up, the graphics are crisp and there are useful "tips" throughout the game.



If you are looking for a nicely paced game where you need a bit of the old grey matter then Word Monaco should be given a run out.


You can try Word Monaco Solitaire here: http://www.smartboxdesign.com/wordmonacoppc.html