Bookworm Deluxe

Another of Popcap's pre-fame crappy games is Bookworm Deluxe. I like word games, so I'm always looking for more on Steam, but there aren't many that are actually any good. This is no exception, sadly.

In Bookworm Deluxe, you have a board full of letters and you make words by selecting adjacent tiles. If you make too many short words, a burning letter will appear at the top of the library, and it will burn it's way down, one letter at a time, until it reaches the bottom. You have to use that burning letter in a word before it hits the bottom or your library will catch fire and you lose. As you level up the difficulty increases and more burning tiles appear.

But there's just something really unfun about this game. Maybe it's the fact that each letter is only touching six others, which doesn't leave a lot of combinations. Mostly you're stuck playing 4 or even 3 letter words because that's all there is. I'd say I spent most of the time with a board that was 75% unusable due to having two xxs in a row or other useless combinations.

So basically the gameplay is unsatisfying, and as a puzzle game, that is all this game is. Oh, there is a small graphic each time you level up, with some creepy looking bad artwork. So there's also that.

Anyway, this is a solid “No” from me. For a much better word game check out Bookworm Adventures or Letter Quest: Grimm's Journey. (Edit: So, for some reason this game is no longer in the Steam store, and neither is Bookworm Adventures. Not sure why. So I guess this review is kind of pointless! Posting it anyway!)