I can’t tell you how many times I’ve passed on this 2009-released Xbox Live Indie Game (XBLIG), but “Wordzy” is actually pretty cool.
The game has you trying to guess a five letter word. It works on a Mastermind-esque mechanic, of looking at whether each guessed character is in the word, and whether it’s also in the correct place. The game informs you through colour-coding which are utterly wrong, which are the right letter in the wrong place, and which are the right letters in the right place. The game has multiple difficulty levels, with each bump up in difficulty adding increasingly-rare five letter words.
The game was further elevated for me was its online play. If you have a friend who’s a wordsmith, competing head-to-head is surprisingly fun. The game’s presentation is simplistic, but we’re talking about a word game here not an action game or a sprawling platformer. The game also (importantly) supports both the Xbox 360 Chatpad, and a USB keyboard, and I’d recommend using one or the other rather than scrolling through all 26 letters over and over again for each character selection.
If you hate crosswords, word searches, etc., just keep on going. However, if you have a history of liking word games, then this is definitely worth a free trial. And if you have an Xbox-owning friend who shares that passion with you, then it’s almost certainly worth a purchase. 80 Microsoft Points if you take the plunge.
Here’s what the developer (Suppsoft LLC) has to say about the game:
“In WORDZY, you can play on your own or compete against another to complete a 5-letter word with letter clues. Customize your game with three different difficulty levels. Great fun for the whole family to expand vocabulary and spelling skills!”
Writings of Mass Deduction 