Playing the worm game

Well that’s what Wookiee calls it anyway.

Really, I’m shocked that you would think that. It’s nothing of the sort. I do try and keep this blog relatively smut free thank you.

It’s a computer game and its real name is Bookworm. I got it from Popcap Games, who do have a great selection of puzzle and arcade games, many of which you can play online, or download a time limited demo version. Go. Play. Don’t blame me when you get hooked.

Bookworm consists of a screen full of tiles, each with a single letter on (except for Q, that has a u too, they’re not that cruel), the idea is to form a chain of touching tiles to make a word of three or more letters and then submit it to the Bookworm, who eats it if it’s valid. Some letters are worth more than others and the longer your word is the more points you score for it. Weird or long words are rewarded with coloured tiles, which are worth even more and act as score multipliers for a word in which you use them.

It’s not all simple though. Some things will generate flaming tiles. These will burn through the tiles below them one by one and if they reach the bottom of the screen then it’s game over baby.

I played this game online, a lot, and I was content to do so, until one day, when I’d spent ages getting together the letters for a truly stupendous word, and it told me I couldn’t put it in. Why, I hear you ask, well because the online game was limited to words of 8 letters or less and mine was 12 letters long.

I vacillated for quite a while, before I gave in a bought the full version of the game. With that I gained access to the online high scores. Now! I thought, I can show off my wordy prowess. I played and played and produced some amazing words with fantastic scores, and when I died I submitted my scores to the online hall of fame and I went and looked expecting to be near the top.

Oh. Dear. Me.

No.

Nowhere near.

There were single word scores just for that day, that were factors of 10 higher than my best, never mind the all-time scores. So I started playing more. The great thing about the full version of the game is that you can save your game and come back to it, which given the all-time high scores, well, you’d have to really.

The game I have going at the moment, I have the highest score I’ve ever managed so far, and I’m determined I’m going to make it onto that all-time high score table one way or another.

Sad. Oh yes. Educational though *grin*