The original Bookworm game was really fun… if you like words. Which I do. But the game was a little, I dunno, lacking variety, I guess. I mean, you just spell words in the same old library until the library burns down. And, while watching the library burn down is pretty exciting, until you get to that point it’s pretty blah. But, I still invested far too many hours in that game than I probably should have. On the upside, I now know lots of little words that I haven’t actually bothered to find out definitions to. Like ‘qua’.
A few years later I saw that there was an addition to the Bookworm universe, an adventure game of sorts. And since I like words and adventure games, I felt an obligation to give it a once-over.
As it happens you, the titular worm, have to slowly work your way to the right spelling words to vanquish foes. Your goal is to eventually rescue Cassandra, who’s in some kind of trouble or other. It doesn’t really matter much, it’s just a pretext to explain the Greek-themed backgrounds, characters, and monsters.
One of the biggest steps in the right direction for me was the slight change in the way you select letters. In the previous game all of the letters had to be contiguous, which made it much tougher. This time the letters can come from anywhere on the board, which makes it much much easier to smith your words.
Although I only played the demo, I ended up playing it several times over. I just really liked the concept of being able to slaughter waves upon waves of foes by being particularly loquacious and sesquipedalian. Something that I also enjoy quite a bit in real life.
I guess I should probably look at purchasing the full version of the game, but I’m kind of concerned. I mean, I lost more than one evening to the demo. If I get the full version of the game I might miss work for a few days.
But that would be an awesome few days.