Gamertell

Product: Super Word Find (ver. 1.2)
Price: $1.99 (sale price)
Publisher (Developer): M.A.D. Partners Ltd.
Pros: Provides plenty of challenges. First few puzzles are enjoyable.
Cons: Must flip between grid and word list, multiple word issue on puzzles, scrolling while selecting letters between screens is frustrating. Giant puzzles are only for the true, hard-core, and uber patient word find aficionados.
Overall: One thumb sideways, one thumb down; 68/100; D+; * 1/2 out of five.

There are plenty of pen-and-paper style puzzles available through the Apple App Store. The nice thing about the iPhone and iPod Touch touchscreen is that you don’t have to worry about your pen scratching through newsprint, wearing out letters when erasing pencil or the inky smudges on your hands.

The bad part is that not every paper game is well suited for a touchscreen. Case in point is Super Word Find from the fine family of word search paper games that becomes an unnecessarily frustrating experience both in terms of programming and as a result of the touch controls.

From A to Z

Much like the pen-and-paper word search games, you’re presented with a grid of letters and have to find all of the hidden words (of a certain theme) on a list to complete the puzzle. The first few take up a screen but, as the grid grows, it becomes spread over multiple screens.

You can use the finger pinch technique to zoom in and out of a grid, though zoom out far enough and the letters become unreadable. You also drag your finger to scroll between screens and can do a partial scroll to get mid grid.

To select a word you tap on one of the ends of the word and then tap on the letter on the other end of the word. Words go in any direction including diagonal and backwards.

The Bigger the Badder

This multi-screen scheme works well enough for a while for the first few smaller puzzles. At that point you are only dealing with one to four screen’s worth of letters and one or two screen’s worth of words to find. That’s not annoying until you get into the word list and have to find three-or four letter words (more on that below).

As the grids grow, the annoyance really kicks in. It becomes nearly impossible to manage more than four screens, especially since you cannot mark screen edges or easily select words across a screen. You push the grid around with the grid edges stopping at the edge of the screen. That’s well and good but then you can hardly tell (or easily find) where last looked.

It’s not just mentally challenging, it’s psychologically and physically challenging in bad ways. You quickly get lost scrolling through the many screens worth of the grid, quickly losing your place and having little chance of actually finding a target word. Also, having to flip away from the grid to a multi-screen list of words makes it a management nightmare.

Pick a Word, Any Word (Just Not That One)

One of the most frustrating quirks with this game is fiding short words. In many cases, a four- or three-letter word will appear in the letter grid more than once. Any respecting word search player would concede that fnding one is the word found. nope, not this game. The word might exist three or four times on the same board but you must select the right one or it won’t be considered found and crossed off the list.

When the grid of words fits on one to four screens, it’s not so bad. But, when you get to more than four screens, forget it. The game goes from a nice challenge to a complicated mess of management, having to flip between the letter grid and then to your word list. I’s so easy to get lost that it destroys all element of fun.

Also, the touch mechanism then proves frustrating, often resulting in the wrong letter being touched. You can increase the letter size to help but that just means you have to scroll around to get to the end of the word you want to select, which forces you to press on a letter you didn’t mean to select.

Screens Don’t Always Make Good Paper

This game is only for the most patient, gotta-have-every-word-find-game addict.

Everyone else, don’t even think of paying more than $1 for this game. Even at that price you might have wished you dropped those four quarters into a gumball machine for a plastic ball stuffed with a useless, glittery Spongebob sticker and sour jawbreaker at your local gas station. The fun will be about that fleeting.

Read [Super Word Find]

Check out the gallery: Super Word Find iPod Touch screen caps