By John Walker on July 31st, 2009 at 11:33 am.
Doubtful about the spelling magic of Bookworm Adventures 2? I can barely stand to look at you. But there’s hope. There’s a demo. Head to PopCap and download the one hour version of the game, and then spell your little heart out! Spell like you’ve never spelt before! Spell words that make your heart sing, your soul sour, your family faint in wonder. Spell, my children! SPELL!
(Below are some of the screenshots I considered for this post.)
31/07/2009 at 11:35 Ubernutz says:
I really enjoyed the demo, my only problem with it being that ‘heiny’ was not an accepted word.
31/07/2009 at 11:44 Ian says:
Well I decided to buy the first one yesterday for 7 quid off Steam. Dunno how much replay value it’ll get (especially if I move straight onto BA2) and it’s not been especially tricky thus far, but it’s a splendid game.
31/07/2009 at 11:45 nabeel says:
How many Peggles is the demo?
>_>
31/07/2009 at 12:05 Jockie says:
I’m going to be rubbish at this, I always come last in Scrabble! Will give it a try though.
31/07/2009 at 12:16 Jives says:
Cunt is not accepted
fiat is
31/07/2009 at 12:21 Dug Briderider says:
Can the RPS regulars tell me if there is 2 player online deathmatch variant of this (Obviously Popcap didn’t think it would be necessary). If not I’m disappointed in the internets.
31/07/2009 at 12:25 espy says:
Ubernutz: that’s because you’ve spelt it incorrectly :D
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiney
31/07/2009 at 12:41 The Hammer says:
“I beat up a house.”
Yes.
31/07/2009 at 12:49 Flint says:
The demo is also on Steam, but no sight of the full game.
31/07/2009 at 12:49 rei says:
The first one had a very shoddy dictionary; I hope they haven’t just copied it over. Also, it seemed to attempt to play some sort of a moral police. I’m surprised this one recognizes ‘orgasm’, doubly so with ‘penis’.
31/07/2009 at 13:11 Flint says:
Oh wait, they’ve added it overnight. My bad for not checking before posting.
31/07/2009 at 13:20 Lars Westergren says:
It looks like the bear in that picture is wearing spandex swimwear. Ew.
31/07/2009 at 13:21 bansama says:
The demo was fun, but the current pricing on Steam is stopping me from buying this. What happened to Popcaps understanding that a $9.99 price tag will sell their games, but a $19.99 one won’t (at least in regards to Steam)?
Guess I’ll just have to wait until it arrives on Big Fish Games.
31/07/2009 at 14:09 Pags says:
“Every movement is agony!”
Oh God, what have you done??
31/07/2009 at 14:23 jpearl01 says:
@Rei
I’m glad others were having the same problem with the morality police. I was just playing the first one. Put in “gonad”; no dice. I got my copy through BigFish games, which mainly sell “kid” friendly games, so I was worried I got screwed with a “kid friendly” dictionary. So, BA2 has a more better dictionary?
31/07/2009 at 14:27 Philip says:
@ Nabeel
About 3.75 Peggle Units.
31/07/2009 at 14:43 viper34j says:
“your soul sour”
John, I can only assume you mean “soar”, but what do I know…
31/07/2009 at 14:52 Andresito says:
20€ seems a bit too much for almost the same game I already own… =(
31/07/2009 at 14:54 ascagnel says:
@jives its because fiat is a dictionary word in the English language. For example, a political leader can rule by fiat.
31/07/2009 at 15:01 Pie21 says:
Urgh, after 1 hour of demo, it’s enormously difficult to resist dropping US$20 to keep spelling.
31/07/2009 at 15:04 Lars Westergren says:
In Swedish currency it was cheaper to buy from Popcap directly instead of Steam. Limited to 5 installs though.
Also,”Inculcated” is that like being bad at maths? As a non-native speaker, this is why want the game to tell me what the words I find means. (From the Popcap cartoon: Lex “Words have meanings??”)
31/07/2009 at 15:31 dsmart says:
The EG review made me go look up sesquipedalian. Basterds.
31/07/2009 at 15:48 MacBeth says:
‘Inculcated’ beliefs have been drummed into someone by an external agency, e.g. a religion, cult, Hive Mind or similar sinister organisation.
e.g. RPS has inculcated in me the belief that Bookworm Adventures is a worthwhile use of my time.
31/07/2009 at 16:04 t. carl says:
BWAv2 uses a different dictionary than the first. It uses the OED – though with some excisions for offensive level.
31/07/2009 at 16:19 lack_26 says:
The first game doesn’t recognise Anglicised Chinese, but what else will I do with the letter X?
31/07/2009 at 16:58 Tworak says:
it’s also on steam.
steam://run/3632
31/07/2009 at 16:58 Taillefer says:
Bookworm Adventures is one of the few games where ‘sodomizing’ somebody to death did bonus damage (for the z).
31/07/2009 at 17:23 Max says:
Bookworm Adventures taught me that “superorgasm” is indeed a word. An incredibly powerful word at that.
I’m really looking forward to this.
31/07/2009 at 18:47 Spaceghost says:
Downloaded and played this at my mother’s house this morning. We had a fantastic time!
31/07/2009 at 19:56 Vinraith says:
I just bought volume 2, and went ahead and picked up BWA1 on Steam because I’m running out of installs from PopCap. <_<
31/07/2009 at 20:23 Stromko says:
I, too, am rather vexed by the limited / weird vocabulary in the first Bookworm Adventures. Fou is not, to the best of my knowledge, a word, and neither is Tou, but they work much better than words like June, most state names, most country names, and other things that it insists are not words.
That bitch Moxie made me guess ‘Ducat’, which is a 19th century coin used in Europe before WWI. What the hell Moxie. I got it on the fourth guess just by eliminating every other vowel but ‘a’ and filling in all spaces but the the 4th letter.
I’ve wasted a lot of time putting together nonsense words just to see if they jive with its weird vocabulary, and sometimes succeeding. If the second game uses a different dictionary I’ll probably buy it, when it’s cheaper.
Though, the difficulty, once ramped up, does get a bit stupid. Tons of enemies in a row that steal your health, petrify you, set you on fire and f**k up your board when you’ve yet to acquire any items that provide any protection from these things, so you either have to get raped repeatedly by these effects or spend up all your petrify potions.
I would generally expect after two or three levels of this, I would acquire some item that would help, but nope. Just have to keep dying and doing minigames to build up a big stockpile of purify potions.
31/07/2009 at 20:24 Stromko says:
Purify potions, not petrify. Of course.
31/07/2009 at 21:03 Lars Westergren says:
Ducat….yeah, I was just expected to guess “llama”. It also refused to recognize liason as a word.
31/07/2009 at 21:08 Vinraith says:
@Lars
If you were spelling liaison “liason” it was right to refuse it.
And neither ‘ducat’ nor ‘llama’ are all that obscure to my thinking. Maybe that just means I play too many strategy games, though.
31/07/2009 at 22:50 Kester says:
@lack_26: “Ex-” words are good ways to use x. I just fucked up a bear with “exonerated” :D
31/07/2009 at 23:06 Lambchops says:
The first word I had to guess in Word Master this time was myrrh. Got it at the fourth go which I was pretty proud of – the lack of vowels had me confused for a while.
One day I’ll get that elusive 13 letter + word. At the moment the best I’ve got has been planetariums.
@stromko
You wouldn’t expecct months and state names to be included – like most word games (Scrabble, Boggle etc.) proper nouns don’t count.
My only problem with the dictionary is remembering that I can use a ‘z’ as an ‘s’ in many cases. Crazy American spellings!
Good fun though and as with most Popcap games it’s the little touches that make it. knowing Popccap I wouldn’t be suprised if the fact Lex eschewed his usual ;don’t leave me’ on quitting in favour of ‘time for bed’ when i quit the game at 11 o’clock as entirely intentional.
01/08/2009 at 00:02 DarkNoghri says:
I’m just mad that ‘cajones’ didn’t register.
01/08/2009 at 07:17 malkav11 says:
Bookworm Adventures was $20. I am not particularly surprised to learn that the sequel is also. However, as I have yet to beat the first, (which I found on disc for $1 in one of the most strikingly wonderful bargains of my career as a bargain hunter) or Plants vs. Zombies, I’ll wait.
01/08/2009 at 07:18 malkav11 says:
Also: perhaps cojones would work? That’s how it’s spelled, I believe. (It’s also not English, so might not be in the game dictionary.)
01/08/2009 at 07:49 DarkNoghri says:
Oh, well maybe I just spelled it wrong. I sometimes do that with foreign words.
01/08/2009 at 10:54 Lars Westergren says:
@Vinraith “liaison” Heh…. damnit. :)
“Llama” might not be obscure, but it is almost impossible to guess in 5 turns. By last turn i had eliminated 25 letters and only found “a” with an “l” given.
01/08/2009 at 16:36 Smurfy says:
I loved the demo, but… £15? Are you kidding? I’d go for it for a fiver.
02/08/2009 at 16:41 Jon says:
Loved the demo also but wont be buying because of the price tag. My best word was pulervise.
03/08/2009 at 10:11 Mr Pink says:
Smurfy: Agreed. It’s a fun time, but the price of admission seems too high. Given the price of PvZ, this seems ludicrous. I will pick this up when it’s on a deal or something, no way I’m paying over £7.
03/08/2009 at 20:24 Fumarole says:
Gonad was not accepted either. For shame.
03/08/2009 at 21:02 Taillefer says:
Lambchops,
Or crazy Oxford English Dictionary spellings?
04/08/2009 at 04:46 Scarves says:
I was just playing the first one of there and I learned a new word.
Hamulate.
Damn educational games teaching me stuff.
25/08/2009 at 12:00 Sven Viking says:
“I beat up a house!”
Just like in FFVII.