Similar to Scrabble, Bookworm is a Flash game developed by PopCap, and hosted on Shockwave. While it doesn’t offer the immediate action of, say, Bejeweled or Zuma, Bookworm can be just as appealing, especially if you have a large vocabulary.
The object of the game is to create words by clicking on adjacent tiles. The longer the word, or the harder to use the letter, the more points you will gain. There are four types of letter tiles for you to manipulate during play:
- Normal tiles, of which there are by far the most
- Gold tiles, which are triggered by making long words (five plus letters) and provide “mega points,” according to the helpful hints that are provided (should you happen to want them)
- Green tiles, which aren’t as valuable as gold tiles, but still provide a nice point bonus
- Flaming tiles. This last type isn’t immediately helpful. Triggered making too many short words (usually those with about three or so letters), flaming tiles slowly burn their way toward the bottom of the playing field. Should they reach the bottom (you will be reminded before they do by a profusely sweating worm), your library catches on fire and the game ends
Additionally, there are occasionally “bonus words” that will give you extra points, should you manage to spell them out.
There are, of course, limits. The game doesn’t accept any words with less than three letters. Proper nouns are off limits as well, and don’t even think about trying colloquial terms. It does, however, accept some rather unexpected letter combinations, such as “leet” and “thefez” (okay, maybe not thefez, but it does accept “leet” as a valid word). And did you know that “quod” and “qua” are words? They even give a nice point lift for using the “Qu” combination tile.
If you think you have a decent vocabulary (or even if you don’t and you’re looking to expand it), give Bookworm a try. Even if you’re an edge-of-your-seat action type person, you’ll probably be able to find at least some enjoyment in it.
Servo5678 says re Bookworm: Bookworm is also available for the PC and Game Boy Advance.