Mobile Digital Media (MDM) has combined
WHAT’S
HOT
four games into an awesome suite of word puzzles that come packed on
a MMC. These games are challenging and have many great features.
Merriam-Webster Crossword Challenge has hundreds of crosswords to choose
from. The What Words dictionary has more than 6,000 words to help
build your score. A 10,000 word dictionary will have you playing
Test Twist for hours. Link Letters has four modes of game play
and can be used to teach and improve literary skills.
MWCP comes on a MMC so once you insert
SETUP
the card into your device the home screen should open. If for
some reason the home screen doesn’t open, you’ll need to manually launch
the game using a file browser. The path to manually launch the
game is Start|Programs|Games|WG launcher. If the WG Launcher icon
is not in your games folder, you will have to launch the game from the
MMC. The path to launch the game from the MMC card is Start|Programs|File
Explorer|Storage Card|WG Launcher.
The first step into bringing four different
PROGRAM
FEATURES
games together into one compilation is to tie them all together
As you can see MDM has done a terrific job at doing this. Upon
insertion of the MMC the home screen, pictured above, is launched.
From here you can choose between four word games: Merriam-Webster Crossword
Challenge, What Word, Text Twist, and Link Letters.
If you like to work on crossword puzzles then
Merriam-Webster
Crossword Challenge
you will love Merriam-Webster Crossword Challenge. What distinguishes
Merriam-Webster Crossword Challenge from a printed crossword is the
verify and hint features. By selecting a square and then tapping
"verify," you can see if the letter placed in the square is
correct. The hint feature works the same. Selecting a square
and then tapping "hint," will reveal the correct letter.
As in most games, the Crossword Challenge main screen offers options
to start and continue a game, as well as links to the games help section.
What differentiates the Merriam-Webster’s home screen is that it also
offers a statistics option to that tracks your progress and informs
you of game history.
Once
you begin a new game you have the option of choosing from three levels
of difficulty. They are Easy, Medium, and Hard.
Once a difficulty level has been selected, the crossword screen appears.
Tapping a square on the grid once will select the horizontal word.
Tapping a square on the grid twice will select the vertical word.
In the above picture, the selected square is highlighted in orange.
The rest of the selected word is highlighted in yellow. Clues
to solve the puzzle are conveniently located on the bottom of the screen,
inside of the white box. The puzzle is then easily filled in by
using the on-screen keyboard. Now for an explanation of the buttons
on the left side of the crossword screen:
The hint button- Selecting a square and then tapping the hint button
will reveal the letter that is supposed to fit in the highlighted square.
The verify button- Selecting a square and then tapping the verify button
will remove the letter if it is wrong. If the letter in the square
is correct it will be left unchanged. This is a nice feature to
use if you are unsure about a word.
Erase button- Selecting a square and tapping the erase button will erase
the letter inside the square.
Done Button- Tapping the done button will end the game.
Home button- The home button will take you to the Crossword Challenge
main screen.
What makes Crossword Challenge stand out from printed crossword puzzles
is it’s statistics screen. It can be accessed from the Crossword
Challenge home screen. As you can see the statistics screen is
extremely informative. From here you can view statistics from
all the difficulty levels. There are statistics from how many
games have been played (or rather games began) to the amount of hints
or verifies you have used. This page is great for keeping track
of your progress.
Check out the Hexacto
website for more information on Merriam-Webster Crossword Challenge.
The object, like most games, is to score as many
What Word
points as possible within each level. To complicate the process, the
game is timed, and to make it even more challenging you must spell the
word in the "What Words" window before a level can be completed.
As the game progresses, more and more words are added into the "What
Words" window.
Tap
the "Play" button to begin playing What Word.
You have 25 letters to use to form a word. Once a word has been formed
it is then placed in the "Got Words" window with a score beside
it. Throughout the game special bonus letters, distinguished by
their different color, will fall into the grid. Using these letters
to make words will give you a higher score. What if you can’t
make a word with the letters in the grid? Well, you can then use
the BLAST button. The BLAST button will shake the grid and change
some of the letters.
If
you want to start or end a game the "Game" menu will provide
you with those options.
The
"Tools" menu will provide you with instructions on how to
play the game as well as provide you with information about the game.
Check out the Astraware
website for more information on What Word.
Text Twist is played with a fixed set of six letters.
Text Twist
The game is a bit reminiscent of hangman in that on the left of the
screen there are several series of blanks. The object is to fill
in these blanks to create a word. You have two minutes to solve
as many of these blank series as possible.
Hit
"Play" to begin playing Text Twist.
You are given six letters to formulate three, four, five, or six letter
words. The more letters your word contains, the more points you
get. The "Twist" button will rearrange the letters to
provide you with a different view.
Once
you form a word it will then be placed on the left hand side.
The
words that you failed to solve appear in red at the end of the level.
You can start a new game or end the current game from the "Game"
menu. The game menu also gives you the option to end the countdown.
You can use this option when there is still time on the clock and you
feel you can’t make any more words.
The
"Tools" menu provides you with instructions on how to play
the game as well as provide information about the game.
Check out the Astraware
website for more information on Text Twist.
With four modes of game play Link Letters will
Link Letters
have you entertained for hours.
Tapping
the screen above will take you to another screen where you can select
the Link Letter game you would like to play.
From this screen you can choose between four modes play. If you
have any questions about how to play any of the games, you can tap the
question mark to it’s right.
The first game you can choose from the game mode screen is Target Trial.
Target Trial is played by forming the target word in as few moves as
possible. The target word can be found on the lower left corner.
You will continue to the next level if you can form the target word
within a specified number of steps.
The
second game is Chain Challenge. Chain Challenge is played by making
as many word links as possible within an allotted amount of time.
Chain
Race is the third game mode. In Chain Race, you change letters
to make as many new words as possible.
The
fourth game mode is Free Play. In this mode you can play the game
without any time constraints. This is a great way to sharpen you
Link Letter skills.
As in the previous three games, there is a "Game" menu in
Link Letters. The "Game" menu gives you options to begin
a new game, pause the current game, or give up the game you are playing.
The "Tools" menu gives you the options to turn Lexy (a character
that gives hints as he heckles you) on, reset the high scores, get instructions
on how to play the game, and provide you with information about the
game.
Check out the Astraware
website for more information on Link Letters.
Instructions on how to play each game are
HELP
SUPPORT
included within the program.
MWCP can be installed on Pocket PC 2002
SYSTEM
REQUIREMENTS
or higher device with a SD/MMC expansion slot. The game also equires
3MB of free memory.
Personally, I think MDM is charging a bit
BUGS
AND WISHES
too much for MWCP. I realize that there are four games on the
card, but only Merriam-Webster Crossword Challenge is an all around
top-quality game. The graphics and gameplay are awesome. The
other games are fun to play, but they just aren’t as aesthetically pleasing
as Merriam-Webster Crossword Challenge. In order to justify a
$29.95 price tag, MDM should at least improve the graphics for the other
three games. Another option is to reduce the price of MWCP. This
could be done by releasing a downloadable version of the game suite.
This would reduce MDM’s packaging and MMC costs. A downloadable
version would also make the game suite available to a larger audience,
specifically, those of us without an MMC slot on our Pocket PC.
A downloadable version of MWCP would have reduced a lot of the problems
I had with the game. Unfortunately, I had trouble launching each
of the games. On occasion, the games would launch without difficulties,
but I usually needed to use the file explorer method described earlier
and/or launch a game several times before it would load. I realize
these problems may have occurred as a result of using a MMC adapter.
Nonetheless, these problems could have been avoided if MWCP came as
a download.
MWCP can be purchased from the Mobile
PURCHASING
Digital Media website for $29.95. Demos are also available
by going to the developers’ website’s by clicking on the game titles
below:
Merriam-Webster
Crossword Challenge
What
Word
Text
Twist
Link
Letters
PROS
Comes
on MMC
Great
suite of games
Stimulates
the mind
CONS
Problems
with the MMC on my Jornada using a MMC adapter
If you like to be intellectually challenged, Merriam-Webster
OVERALL
IMPRESSION
Crossword Puzzles & Word Challenges is for you. Don’t let
the simple appearance of the games in this suite fool you. The
games are fun to play, challenging, and provide you with a great tool
for building vocabulary.
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