Bookworm Adventures Review

Playing Bookworm Adventures

If you're a fan of word, puzzle or just casual games in general, you've probably heard of the Bookworm titles before. This game takes the same word-building formula and puts an interesting new twist on it.

Guide the little green worm Lex through a storybook to rescue the kidnapped Cassandra. During your quest, you'll come across various enemies that stand in Lex's way. To defeat them, use the grid of letter tiles at the bottom of the screen and spell words. When you arrange three or more letters into a valid word, the "attack" button lights up. Click it to have Lex unleash an attack on the unsuspecting foe. The longer the word you spell, the more damage you do. Less-common letters -- such as V, X, and Z -- net more damage as well. Enemies fight back, of course, so defeat them as fast as you can with unique words and you'll zoom through the battles in a breeze.

After you defeat a set number of enemies in Bookworm Adventures, you'll face off against a tougher "boss" opponent. Defeating the boss earns you a special item that can have a profound effect on gameplay. For example, the Bow of Zyx gives words you spell with the letters X, Y or Z more power, causing more damage to the enemy. There are also healing, damage prevention and status-altering artifacts as well. Special items you collect give the game a lot of strategy beyond the simple word-conjuring. You'll really stretch your brain looking for letter combinations to make the longest words you can!

Fluffing out the Formula

Spelling words to defeat enemies happens to be a lot of fun, but Bookworm Adventures adds a lot more to the experience. After a few levels, the game introduces new features to keep things fresh. For example, enemies will sometimes use special attacks that can poison Lex, causing a bit of damage each turn, stun you for a round, or even lock certain letter tiles and make them unusable. Fortunately, you'll also collect items that will help you combat these nasty tricks.

A really unique feature of the game are word categories. Certain opponents have a special weakness to sets of words. For example, one boss is weak against any word relating to metal. Spelling things like "iron", "aluminum", "tin", even related phrases like "shiny" all cause extra damage.

Gem tiles are introduced a few levels into the game, giving you more ways to cause extra damage to enemies and keep Lex healed for battle. Spell long words to earn a colored gem, and to use the gem, simply incorporate that tile into a word.

• Amethyst (purple) - Poisons an enemy for a few turns and adds 15% damage to the word.
• Emerald (green) - Adds 20% damage to the word and heals Lex for two hearts.
• Sapphire (blue) - Adds 25% damage and freezes the enemy for a turn.
• Garnet (orange) - Adds 30% damage and weakens the enemy's attacks.
• Ruby (red) - Similar to poison, sets the enemy on fire and causes a bit of damage for several turns. Ruby also adds 35% damage to the word.
• Crystal (bright pink) - Removes all adverse status effects from Lex and the letter grid, shields Lex from damage for a turn, and it adds 50% damage to a word.
• Diamond (white) - The rarest gem, Diamond heals Lex completely, gives you one potion of each type and adds 100% damage to the word.

Bookworm Adventures: Worth it's weight in words?

Bookworm Adventures has all the great fun and thrills of a great word game placed in the comfortable atmosphere of a light-hearted role playing adventure. The addition of a simple quest adds a vital element of progression and accomplishment to the game. No more fighting for a high score, this time you get rewarded in the form of items, special artifacts, and new enemies to vanquish.

The game itself is quite long and surprisingly challenging as you progress. There are three chapters to complete, and each one will take you between two and three hours. There are several special modes to unlock as well, giving you plenty of reason to keep coming back. Very few games have captivated me as Bookworm Adventures has, so be sure to check it out and discover the magic yourself.

How to Get Bookworm Adventures

Bookworm Adventures is available for download from PopCap Games. The demo version is free and you can unlock the full, unlimited version for $29.95. The game is only available for Windows equipped PC computers at the moment.