Scrabble Meets Civilization In The Interesting New Word Game, Scryptic
Scryptic ($1.99) by LKS GameWorks is a new, more strategic, take on Scrabble. With an all out war going on on this game board, it sure makes for an interesting concept.
I love word games. I have been playing Scrabble since I can remember. So, when I saw that this was a word game with added oomph, I was very excited to check it out.
To begin, you must play words starting in your "city" and link your words to your opponents city. Along the way, you will encounter terrain. This is what makes the game interesting. For example, if you place letters on ice terrain squares (given they are two points or more), the ice will break and turn into water. The water squares can only have letters placed on them if you form a kind of bridge with the letters: this is done by having both the first and last letter of the word on "dry land."
Once you finally connect to the other player's word(s), you have your choice to attack. If you choose to attack, the winner of the battle is the word that is worth more points; the lesser scoring word is then destroyed and removed from the board.
The coolest thing about this game is that the meaning of the word you play can impact the game greatly. For instance, playing words like "sword" will increase your attacks, whereas, word like "shield" will increase your defenses.
Currently, you can only play against the AI or pass-and-play with a friend. The developers are planning to add multiplayer support soon, but for now you're really just stuck with the computer. It does have Game Center though, so you're able to earn achievements and rank in the leaderboards.
The real problem is that every single game I played, ended in a stalemate. I suppose it's okay since after each player passes twice, the game is over; but I find it repetitive (and not in a good way). Why would I want to keep playing this game when no one ever wins?
I was very let down here — maybe my expectations were too high. The graphics are terrible and gameplay was not much better. I even experienced a few crashes and one incident where the game froze on my opponents turn. Exiting the app once didn't even fix this. I had to come back to it hours later, after I was no longer frustrated with it, to give it a go. Finally, it worked.
Not only did I not like the game much, I didn't really understand it much.
I believe that if the user isn't pulled in immediately, and taught how to play without much time or effort on their part, they're not going to stick around. People aren't going to want to play a game if it takes too long to learn. Let's face it, we're busy or lazy or both. We don't have time for this stuff.
If you read this review, and think this sounds right up your alley — despite the difficulty of understanding gameplay — then by all means go for it.
It does have originality for sure, but I just cannot recommend it. Maybe it's just not my type of game, but I was pretty frustrated as I tried learning how to play. I don't suggest paying $1.99 for this.
