The word game genre definitely has found its niche and it’s on the iPhone/iPod Touch.  The App Store has tons of great word games available right now suited for almost anyone imaginable.  I, for one, am not the biggest word game aficionado nor do I claim to be, but Textropolis has to be one of my favorite word games yet.  Its casual play coupled with great game and graphical simplicity make it one of the best word titles available.

Textropolis consists of thirty city names.  The letters in the city names are used to create words that consist of at least four letters.  You are unable to use proper nouns.  For those of you that don’t know, a proper noun is a specific name given to a person, place or thing such as John for a person or Albuquerque for a city.  Like you would have created the word Albuquerque anyway, right?  That isn’t the only English lesson you will be receiving via Textropolis.  Whenever you create a word, a plane will fly by your screen giving the exact definition of that word.  If you end up getting lucky and guessing a word without knowing the definition, Textropolis will feed you that information.

Textropolis includes no customization options at all.  There isn’t even a timer or an option to add one.  This is actually a great thing due to the casual learning nature of the game.  If you throw a timer into the mix, who is going to care to read the definitions of the words?  Another great addition to the gameplay is the use of plurals.  If the city name includes an “S” you can just tack it on the end of a three letter word to make it plural, as long as it remains a valid word.

When a word is created, your population increases.  It is a total score system, each city doesn’t have it’s own population.  Each city does, however, have a star rating.  Stars are achieved by guessing a specific percentage of the possible words that can be created.  A counter is located at the top of the screen that displays how many words you have created, how many total words can be created and how many stars you have achieved for that specific city name.  You must attain at least a one star rating to move on to the next city.

You can also receive hints for words, but it comes at a cost.  Only use this feature if you just can’t think of any more word possibilities and are trying to achieve a higher star rating.  If you feel like getting a hint, shake your iPhone/iPod Touch and a screen will pop up immediately warning you that this hint is going to cost you a portion of your population.

The iPhone/iPod Touch’s screen is only so big, definitely not large enough to display every word you have created simultaneously.  Some cities have well over three-hundred possible word combinations.  The developer decided to have a single line scroll across the top of your screen showing the words that you have already created.  To cut it down to size, whenever you start typing, words that have already been created that begin with the same letters are displayed by themselves.  For example, if you have already created the word “star” and are about the create another word beginning with the same letters such as “start”, Textropolis will display only “star” to make it easier on your brain.  This isn’t the worst way of displaying the words, but it is quite difficult to see the smaller text when you have reached a high word count.

Another issue is if you go on an absolute tear, guessing word after word, the definitions that fly by your screen can’t keep up with your typing.  They only can fly by so fast, you need to be allowed enough time to read them.  You must then wait for whatever the word is that you wanted to learn the definition of to finally scroll across the screen.  Once again not a huge problem, just an annoyance for those who want to learn some new words.

The graphics, gameplay and sound are all very simple but effective.  The graphics, though simple, are stunningly clean.  Every button, graphic and text is extremely easy to distinguish.  Great care and polish went into creating this title to be perfect from the start.

The population, or scores, can be shared via email.  Once again, I am not the biggest fan of this system but it cuts costs associated with server hosting.  At least we have some form of interaction.

Overall, we have a winner in Textropolis.  None of the minor word displaying issues have any effect on the overall experience of this insanely polished and simple word game.  Developer Ian Marsh has created some gems in the past, but this has to be his finest work to date.  Log on to the App Store immediately to pick this one up because it is an absolutely addictive word game.

Overall: 9 out of 10

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