Word building games are a great way to sharpen your critical thinking and build vocabulary. If you are passionate about playing word games, you must try your hands at Word-A-Fall. Word-A-Fall is an iPhone app that is quite different from traditional word building games. It is fast-paced, interactive and easy to learn but difficult to master. This app is a great boredom buster and the perfect way to have a few hours of fun with friends or family.

What’s the app about?

The objective of Word-A-Fall is to see how many words you can create within a limited time period. The app features a waterfall from which letter tiles flow down continuously. You have to simply tap on the letters to form words. You need to form as many words as possible before the tiles disappear into the waterfall. You score points for every word you form correctly. The app belongs to the Games category in the iTunes App Store.

Working of the app:

Word-A-Fall comprises three game modes – Classic, WordSmith and Rushing Rapids. Classic mode gives you a time limit of two minutes within which you have to form as many words as you can. In WordSmith mode you need to create words that have a minimum of four characters, within the same time limit. Rushing Rapids is the most challenging mode. The speed of the tiles increases with each word you submit. At the end of each game, your score, best word and total word count are displayed. You can share your scores with your friends via SMS.

Once you choose a game mode, letter tiles start falling down the waterfall. Each letter tile holds a value from 1 to 10. Your score depends on the total value of the tiles that make up the word. After you form a word, you just need to swipe your finger to the right to submit it. When you choose a tile by mistake or if you are not able to create a word, you can swipe to the left to drop all the letters of that word. You can pause the game at any time by tapping on the timer.

The most interesting feature of Word-A-Fall is the 8 Action tiles. These tiles make the gameplay very exciting by either increasing or decreasing your score. There are a total of 5 positive and 3 negative action tiles. The 2W, 3W and 4W tiles double, triple and quadruple your word value. The 10W tile multiplies your word value by 10. The +10 tile adds 10 extra seconds to the timer (this will be of great help when you are running out of time). You need to be careful about the negative action tiles; the -10 tile reduces 10 seconds from the timer. The blind tile makes all the falling tiles fade away from the playing area for about 10 seconds. The bomb tile, the most dangerous of the lot, clears your entire letter field.

Word-A-Fall has got an overall pleasant appearance and the sound effects suit the theme of the game. The Instruction option explains the game clearly. Options to get your friends involved in the game through social media could have been included. The app could have been optimized for kids by including simpler levels, to help them get a hang of the concept of word building.

Word-A-Fall is a fun way to enhance your word building skills. The app costs $0.99 and requires iOS 6.0 or later versions.

Download

Rating:

I first heard about Settlers of Catan a couple of years back, when my sons had played it at a friend’s house. They really enjoyed it, so I purchase a copy for our family vacation. After one game, we were hooked. The whole family now plays including our extended family.

What makes Catan so enjoyable? The rules are relatively straightforward, almost anyone can win any game, up to 6 people can play at a time, and you have to interact with the other players. Catan has been out for iOS for some time now and is even available for Android devices. I have played the Android version but have never had a chance to try the iOS version until now.

The goal of Catan is to dominate your island, either by having the most knights, longest road, most settlements or cities. You do this by acquiring or trading resources: wood, sheep, ore, clay. The iOS version of the game is very true to the board game, so if you have played before you should not have any trouble getting into the game.

The game is broken into two sections: Campaign of Custom Game. To play campaign you need to purchase one or both of the expansions. The two expansions are Seafarers and Cities and Knights. Each expansion is $4.99 USD and independent of the other. When you do purchase an expansion, you until a number of maps and scenarios you can play in the custom game area. In the custom area, you can create a game, continue a game, or watch the tutorial. The tutorial is broken up into different aspects of the game so you can focus on just the parts you want/need. There is also an Almanac with terms and definitions for you.

When you start a custom game, you can choose from a number of different scenarios, each gives you the keys to victory and a general layout of the map. As I mentioned earlier, many of the games are part of the expansions, so you will need to purchase them to unlock. There is a lite version of both expansions present when you purchase Catan, so you can get a favor of what they are like. After you chose the scenario, you can modify a few other options like, number of players, human or AI, victory points, dice mode, robber mode, etc. You can do multi-player on the same device. There has been some talk about online multiplayer but not sure its status. You also can only save 1 game at a time and there are no profiles.

So how is the game? Great. It plays well on the iPod Touch 5th Genertion. The graphics are sharp and the game board is very easy to view (pitch to zoom) and the menu items do not take up that much space. After playing a couple of rounds, you will get the different buttons down. Gameplay is smooth and overall, I think the game is a bit harder than the board version because I find it difficult trying to remember of keep track of the other players resources.

If you enjoy the board game and want a portable, well developed, and supported electronic version of the game, then I recommend you purchase Catan for iOS. With two expansions and possibly more on the way, Catan for iOS offers a ton of gaming. So see if you can help the intrepid seafarers on the new island that they have discovered!

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Rating:

Hairy Tales is a iPhone game by Arges Systems that stars the Hairys. As you may have guessed from their names, the Hairys are a bunch of hairy fellows. They aren’t too bright and without your guidance they would happily walk of a cliff.

They’re in a tile-based world that’s been taken over by evil and corruption and it’s up to you to arrange their environment so they reach their goal without getting hurt in the process. When you first start playing a ghost hand shows you how you can shape the levels to dictate where the Hairys walk. The controls are really simple and you’ll get the hang of them in no time.

You only need to use one finger to play Hairy Tales. You can move tiles around by simply dragging them and you can tap on them to make them change direction. Some tiles change the course of the Hairy so you can use these to get them around tricky situations.

Once you’ve arranged the Hairys path you tap on the Hairy to get him moving. You can continue to move tiles around after the Hairy starts walking but it’s better to plan ahead as the Hairys move quickly.

Early levels are easy to get through but as you progress more challenges and obstacles make it harder to get the Hairy from their starting point to the finishing goal. There are 72 levels to get through so you’ll get plenty of time to guide the Hairys.

As you get through the levels the environment starts to clean up as a visual representation of your progress. All levels can be completed in multiple ways so you can use your creativity to create your own unique solutions. The graphics and characters give Hairy Tales a unique and quirky feel and the puzzles become challenging enough to maintain my interest for a long time. You can learn more about Hairy Tales here.

Rating 5/5 Stars

If you’ve ever wanted to create your own natural world you’re in luck because Topia by Crescent Moon Games is an iPhone app that costs $0.99 and lets you do just that.

As soon as you open the app you will be stunned at how beautiful the graphics are. It’s iPhone 5 optimized and simply looks amazing on the larger screen.

When you get over the beauty of the app and get started you go through a tutorial that shows you how you can mold your world. You can control and shape the landscape and add various creatures to your creation. You get the full planet to play around with and the controls are extremely intuitive and well suited for touch screens. You can easily create mountains, deserts, vegetations, ponds, rivers, seas and more.

You can also populate your world with various animals including birds, pinos, tikes and tapis. If you create too many predators you can kill them with lightning before they eat too many other creatures! You can add as many creatures as you want so you might end up piling hundreds of them in one place just for fun. You can even create paths for your creatures to follow!

Once you finish the tutorial  you’ll easily be able to do all this by simply selecting your tool and touching your world with one finger. You can use two fingers to move around and zoom in. The world changes and evolves over time so it’s not as simple as molding your landscape and adding some creatures. It takes time for grass to grow and changes to take place.

At the moment you can only play in sandbox mode but more features are promised including more game modes, world sharing, challenges and leader boards. Topia is addictive and fun purely because of how beautiful it looks and how smooth it is to use. The additional features that are promised will be welcomed as they will create more incentives to keep creating.

Topia is hugely impressive and there’s still plenty of potential for it to improve. It’s well worth the $0.99 it costs and I recommend you check it out here.

Rating 5/5 Stars

Retrobot is the latest game by Endeavor Bros and it costs $0.99 in the App Store.

The story behind the game is based in 2025 where robots are doing all the tasks humans don’t want to do. As you’ve probably guessed, things start to go wrong and these robots take control of the world. You play as Retrobot who is the hero of the story and is out to find his master, Spencer.

Retrobot isn’t alone in his task as he’s accompanied by Spencer’s pet monkey, Toto. Together they roll through the world, shooting through evil robots in trying to find their master.

You see this story unfold in the form of comics between levels. If you’re the type who doesn’t have the time for story lines and just wants to get stuck into the gameplay you can turn the comic updates off.

Controlling Retrobot is easy as all you can do is move forwards, backwards and shoot your weapon in nearly all directions. While roaming through the streets looking for Spencer you encounter various robots that are all trying to attack you. Shooting them down sometimes results in bonuses that help you along. You can get health boosts, shields and upgraded weapons.

The upgrades and health boosts come in handy as you often find that you’re being attacked by a few robots at the same time, some flying and some on the ground.

There are 5 different worlds you need to work through and at the end of each one you encounter a boss. Boss levels are what you’d expect them to be. You’re up against a huge boss robot and you have to move around to avoid their attacks while you try and shoot them down.

The gameplay is really easy to get the hang of and it’s not too easy or too hard so can quickly get addictive. The story and general randomness of Retrobot is what makes this a truly interesting game. It costs $0.99 and you can get it for your iPhone, iPod touch or iPad here.

Rating 4/5 Stars.

Neptune Interactive & Forest Moon Games have just released a classic scrolling shooter called JAM: Jets Aliens Missiles. When you get started you go through a tutorial so you can learn how to destroy your enemies effectively. It’s a pretty simple game to get the hang of to you’ll get started in no time.

J.A.M stands for Jets, Aliens, and Missiles and those three words describe this game perfectly. You’re in a jet and you have to shoot down aliens with missiles (or lasers and machine guns!).

You control your jet by swiping up or down and shoot an alien ships by taping on them. You can shoot down a stream of alien invaders by swiping across all their ships. There are a number of ships that you need to take down and some take more to defeat than others.

Occasionally you will come across a huge beast of an enemy that takes a lot to defeat. While this adds to the challenge that you have to start right from the beginning of the level when you get killed can get annoying.

You can multiply the amount of points you earn by shooting a few alien ships down in a row really quickly.

“Enerjules” are left when alien ships are shot down and you can collect and use these Enerjules to buy weapons and upgrades for your jet. You can get various upgrades including shields, lasers and even visual upgrades like paint.

The alien invasion lasts for 5 stages and each can be played with 3 different difficulty modes. As you’d expect, the further you progress the more interesting and challenging J.A.M becomes.

If you’re into the scrolling shooter games you’re probably going to enjoy JAM. The controls are easy to get the hang of and shooting down multiple ships in one go is really satisfying. You can download it for $0.99 here.

Rail Rush is a brand new game from Miniclip. It’s set in a mine and your character is in a cart that’s rolling through the mine. Your job is to avoid obstacles and collect gems and golden nuggets.

If you’ve played Temple Run you’ll instantly get the hang of Rail Rush. You can control the cart by swiping up, down, left and right. You can also lean the cart by tilting the phone.

Swipe up to jump the cart over obstacles, swipe down to duck under them or swipe left or right to jump to different rail lines. Tilting the phone left or right causes the cart to tilt onto two wheels. This can be done to avoid obstacles or to collect golden nuggets and gems. Crashing into something or going off the rails means you need to start all over again.

The further you get the faster the cart goes so you need to be pretty quick to avoid trouble. The precious gems you collect allow you to buy virtual good to enhance the experience. You can spend the golden nuggets on new characters and cool power ups. Some of the power ups really make the game more exciting. The steam power ups are my personal favorites.

Rail Rush has stunning graphics, 6 different environments, achievements and action packed gameplay to ensure you have a good time.

While the gameplay isn’t all that original and may remind you of the Temple Run style games the cool graphics and added elements to Rail Rush make it worth checking out.

Rail Rush was just released in the App Store today (publish this on the 13th) and you can download it here.[add in link]

Rating 5/5 Stars

Are you a fan of the classic battleship board game? If yes, then you’ll love playing Battle at Sea: Old Alert in your iPhone. The app has no fancy shows and no gimmicks, it’s a plain, easy to play battleship game and its simplicity is what leads to it scoring high marks.

Battle at Sea: Old Alert is a iPhone game developed by ASH Applications and is available to download from the iTunes store for just 99 cents.

The game, as I said, is simple and easy to play. Its interactive and as in the board game, strategy is the key here. If you think you could win by just randomly firing the grid, you will be amazed to see the computer beat you in a jiffy. The game comes with a multi player option which can be used to play with family or friends via either Bluetooth or WiFi.

The layout is pretty similar to the board game, you position you fleet in the grid and hit go to play. In the app screen, once you’ve started the game, you’ll see a big grid where you’ll be guessing where the opponents ships are and firing at them. In the left you will see your own fleet and how is it performing.

There is a small box in the bottom left of the screen which indicates the turn of play and a Captain or Pirates face screaming every time you’ve been hit or sink the opponent’s ship. The developer should take note that after some time the voice of the captain starts to get on your nerves. It would seem that you would do yourself a favor if you mute your iPhone while playing the game.

Once you’ve sunk all the ships the game ends and is quite abrupt. There are no scores, no levels, no awards and even nothing to share about your achievements to say, even to your Facebook friends. That’s a bit disappointing given that the app is paid for. I would have liked additional levels or some added features like different bombing options or even a leader-board for scores to make it exciting.

Nevertheless the game is addictive and if you liked the board game, I am sure you’ll love this one.

You can download the app from the iTunes store from here.

Final Rating – 4/5