Bookworm Adventures

by Peter Berger on March 5, 2007

Many reviewers have focused on Bookworm Adventures’ development budget. I prefer to judge it by another standard: a game that keeps me up until 5 in the morning is a bloody marvelous game. Here’s its description in three words: “Boggle, The RPG”. There’s a plot and dialogue, penned by Stephen Notley of Bob the Angry Flower, but primarily this game is about feeling terribly clever because you were able to find the word “pilgrimages” in a tangle of letters.

The game offers a series of battles. You damage opponents by spelling words. Longer words, or words with less common letters, cause more damage. Every level has a boss monster; defeating a boss earns you magic items that enhance your abilities. For example, the Hammer of Hercules hits harder if you spell a “metal” word, such as “steel.” I haven’t been able to spell “aluminum” during battle yet, but hope springs eternal.

As in any RPG-flavored game, your enemies have different powers; some stun or poison you, and some corrupt your letter tiles. Trying different strategies on different enemies is one of the things that makes the game replayable.

Bookworm Adventures is the apotheosis of the well-designed casual game. Everything about it is designed to avoid frustration: start a game inside 15 seconds, quit anywhere, and the game saves your exact position. If you “die,” you simply get more chances to level up. It might be one of the few games I’ve played where, on dying, I’ve said to myself “Oh good! This means I get to play more.”

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