There are plenty of mobile games that leave our head spinning with their increasing graphics and ultra real worlds, yet the game that's grabbed our attention the most lately is Wixel a shockingly simple word game that offers new functionality to the puzzle realm. Here's our review of Wixel.
| Performance | Rating  |
Word dictionaries are not the smallest files you'll find on most games, with tens of thousands of words we often see 2-3mb files just for word recall on word games, Wixel on the other hand hovers around the very small 1MB spectrum while still offering an accuracy of words down to the .002% which is a very small margin of error. The words on Wixel also load lightning quick, I had read Robert Greens webpage (The creator of Wixel) and he had made the claim that the words arrived quickly on the screen, at first I was skeptical but after the first 2 games I played I was a true believer.
Thanks to the games ability to load quickly and use very little system or memory card resources the gameplay is very quick and smooth with its simply graphical interface. Also because its not consuming a ton of system resources your battery isn't going to drain as quickly as some other games have a tendency to do.
Gameplay
From the main menu screen to the actual gameplay levels Wixel couldn't be any easier to navigate and utilize.
When users enter the game they are first greeted with the main menu screen that is neatly layed out featuring: New Game, Play Online, My Stats, Settings and About options. Yes there is online gameplay available!
Here's a screenshot of the main screen: (Provided by Robert Green)
Once into the actual game play Wixel looks much like many other word creation games such as the popular "Bookworm" game offered by Yahoo Games. The premise starts simple, find the 3, 4, 5 and 6 letter words by tapping on tiles located next to each other, the more words in each category you find the higher your score and the better chance you have of moving onto the next level. Wixel utilizes the entire Google Android screen so that users not only see the gameboard but also the number of each word size left, these words are signified by a number and LW for instance 3 Letter words show up as "3LW" followed by the number of words remaining for instance "3LW:30" this makes it easy to search for smaller words when time is running low, and you'll see the time ticking away at the top left of the screen (also prominently placed). Here's an example of the typical Wixel screen:
Simply tapping the keys will probably work for most users as they search for words, however Robert took his game one step further allowing for a quick slide feature that allows users to slide their finger from letter to letter and after lifting their finger the word is inputted. This is a great option for speed players looking to improve on their games and its not something we've seen in other games of this type.
The best part about Wixel however is the ability to play what they call "Progressive Play Mode" in this setting users must first find all of the 3 letter words before the 4 letter words become available and so on and so forth, this makes the game much more challenging and opens up a new type of gameplay not before seen on this type of wordgame.
Finally Wixel allows for internet gameplay including the ability to follow other players via the Leaderboard, a great option if you want to compete against others on the fly. The leaderboard is accessed via the online gameplay using your devices data connection and GPRS and Edge connectivity both seemed to work 100% fine with the program meaning any user should be able to take advantage of the online gameplay as long as they have a data connection.
Here's the leaderboard:
| Price Vs. Value | Rating |
Wixel is free if you don't want to play the online version of the game, so how much is the online feature worth? To use it's an integral part of the game and the $1.99 to own that feature is well worth the cost. Not to mention $1.99 also gets you any future updates that Mr. Green decides to add to the game. Free or Paid you'll have a great experiece but we highly recommend the online version of the game.
Conclusion
Robert has approached me and asked me if I would be willing to review his game, he seemed VERY confident in the game he had literally spent months creating and for good reason, Wixel is built with optimization in mind, offers the type of word gameplay that puzzle lovers have come to expect and he's added his new progressive gameplay that gives users an entirely new type of experience. If you love word games, heck even if you're semi-interested in them I would highly recommend visiting the Official Wixel Page and downloading this great Google Android App today.