Rock, Paper, Shotgun

What’s The Magic Word, Tommy?

Posted by John Walker on October 10th, 2008 at 2:38 pm.

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He's trapped inside a book, wouldn't you know.

While there are far too many identikit casual games, one area they’re constantly short of is spelling-based games. Oh, be off with your yawns. Bookworm Adventures is clearly the greatest of them all, by leagues, but a cute, playable runner up is always welcome. Tommy And The Magic Words is almost that.

It’s the usual array of ghastly, chirpy cartoons, and plinky plonky harp twiddles, but most of all, it’s about creating paths by spelling words from a pool of tiles. Which is fun. Unfortunately, the game’s presentation is apparently pitched at those under the age of 4, who aren’t the core spelling demographic. It’s also slightly flawed by making itself too easy, by offering an abundance of tiles that can be assigned to any letter, rather undoing the central idea. But we mention it today as there’s an free hour-long trial being pushed, and Scrabble fans should find a twinkling of entertainment.

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8 Comments »

  1. Shadowcat says:

    My favourite is Bonnie’s Bookstore.

    The production values are excellent (the concept art history is rather interesting), and the gameplay manages to keep things interesting from level to level, thanks to the introduction of special tiles, and the constant changes in board shape.

  2. Bobsy says:

    Well you’ve made me want to play a few rounds of Bookworm Adventures after work. Huzzah!

  3. Michael says:

    Tommy is a sweet game! I remember reviewing it for AVault a few years ago. People didn’t take kindly to it though… LOL!

  4. SuperNashwan says:

    If someone made something like Typing Of The Dead but with spelling I’d buy it instantly, smashing a boss with words in Bookworm Adventures had me embarassingly shouting and punching the air. “QUIXOTIC! F*cking eat that you c*nt!”. There may be something wrong with me…

  5. Talisker says:

    Don’t overlook Dungeon Scroll if you dig Scrabbley word games.

  6. Paul says:

    Yay!!!!!!
    I played a demo of this quite a while ago, and went looking for it a few months later. Unfortunately, as all I could remember was the vague ‘magic theme’, I had to make do with the great but not quite the same concept Bookworm adventures. Thanks!

  7. Kareem says:

    Weird, the game seemed to not recognize some simple words like “Shape”, but recognized “Pahs”instead for some reason, while admitting there was no definition for it in the game’s dictionary.

    Uninstalled.

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