Now Available: Word Squares by Imangi Studios – [Updated]

From the guys who brought you the extremely popular Imangi, and not yet available on the App Store, we take an exclusive look at Imangi Studio’s next puzzling iPhone title. Word Squares …

Deriving from an ancient concept, Imangi’s Word Squares takes you back to possibly before the Christian Era and brings a good ol’ fashioned puzzler to your fingertips.

Aim
The aim of Word Squares is quite simple. Rearrange the letters on the playing board to make words, however there is a catch. Each board contains stationary letters which cannot be moved. These are symbolized by a bigger, white font. White letters are in their correct place in relation to successfully completing the board. To win a board, rearrange the letters until each line reading across or down makes a valid word.

(Yes, we said valid, as in Oxford Dictionary valid …)

Gameplay
There are four levels in which you can challenge yourself with Word Squares, these include: Easy, Medium, Hard and Expert. Each time you increase the difficulty, you’ll notice the playing board grows in size making it even more difficult to complete the board. When on the playing board, moving letters is as simple a touch and drag. Users can only move certain letters. Movable letters are shown in black. When a move is valid it is signaled visually by the board outlining it in yellow.

Stuck? – hit the ‘Hint’ button on the bottom navigation panel. The board will play a move automatically for you, bringing you ever closer to completing the board!

Screenshots:

Visuals and Sound
Boasting a similar UI to the original Imangi [App Store], there is one thing Word Squares won’t look, and that’s out of place. Imangi didn’t stop there though, adding to the small amount of titles that currently support it, Word Squares has sound! As far as we can tell, sounds are initiated on two occasions:

• On a successful letter to letter move

• When a user completes the board

With it’s very visually pleasing UI which is both simple yet effective, game play can become quite addictive after a time.

Game Options
Hitting the ‘Options’ button on the bottom navigation panel brings you to game options. As expected, this very simple game only features very simple options. The two options available are:

• Turn game sounds On/Off

• Hint Options

Hint options offer four further options which include;

• Start with no hints

• Start with a few hints

• Start with more hints

• Start with lots of hints

Price
Word Squares by Imangi is expected to hit the App Store before October 10th with an introductory price of £0.59p ($0.99). With the success of Imangi (their first title) I believe this will also be a hit, and with a price like 59p (the lowest physical price available to developers submitting to the App Store), its perfect for impulse buyers and fans alike.

Things we like!

• Great UI (very polished)

• iPod music can be played during gameplay

• Sound

Improvements we’d like to see
From testing Word Squares, we noticed the only time a user is notified of a correct move is when the user successfully completes the board. As the game works on the principle of word making, we’d possibly like to see alerts (both visual and audio) initiated when a user successfully makes each individual word.

Overall
After using Word Squares for just over 3 days now, it’s a very puzzling title with enough challenge enclosed to make it worth it’s 59p. It boasts a very well executed user interface which seems to have the user at mind.

Availability
Available in the iTunes Application Store world-wide for the iPhone and iPod touch starting in a few days (Hopefully before October 10th, 2008).

Imangi Studios: Imangistudios.com
Grab your Copy: [App Store]