iTouchiLearn Words consists of three parts: two word games and a series of animations based on the same pool of words to reinforce learning. Simply touch, play, learn and enjoy. Unlike static flash cards, iTouchiLearn Words provides a fun, interactive way to learn, while keeping the sessions short to keep the child’s mind engaged and attentive. The app is simply, but effectively designed – some of the illustrations and animations aren’t the greatest, but I’m sure most young children won’t mind, so long as the adult can get past whatever preconceived biases they may have against less fastidious-looking artwork.

The main menu shows three tabs in the form of torn out sheets of notepad paper, one with ABC, one with a magnifying glass, and one with a film slide showing a baby crawling. The first tab, ABC, is a word game where a picture is shown, along with four possible word choices. The narrator, for example, says, “Touch the dog,” and your child has to figure out which word represents dog. When a wrong word is selected – let’s

Positive reinforcement in action

say cat – the narrator reads the word aloud, but then a buzzer noise is heard, and the narrator repeats the command, “Touch the dog.” This process of elimination continues until your child selects the right word, dog, and applause is heard, a WOOHOO! and a ringing bell. The game is all about positive reinforcement, indicated all the more by the smiling, happy star that appears when a right answer is selected. Over time, the idea is that your child will begin to associate the visual imagery with the word, itself.

The next game, indicated by the magnifying glass, is nearly the opposite of the aforementioned game: this time around, a word is given – i.e. balloon – and three possible images are shown. The process is the same as the last game – your child gradually eliminates choices until the correct one is chosen, with negative and positive reinforcement along the way. The last game, though, is where iTouchiLearn Words truly shines. The last game takes the cognitive skills up a notch by introducing animation in tandem with words, so your child may recognize different words that may be used with the same image, depending on the situation at hand. I really like the egg animation, in particular. First, an egg is shown, with the word “egg” spoken aloud. Next, the egg breaks open and lands in a skillet, where the phrase “fried egg” is heard, along with a sizzling sound. A chicken is then shown, it lays an egg, then egg hatches open and reveals a chick, with the narrator using words the entire time. The chick then goes through a quick growth metamorphisis back into a chicken. It’s actually quite brilliant, and I’m sure, fascinating for a child to behold.

A few of the animations may be a bit difficult to conceive – the animation where the boy is playing catch with a small, rubber ball comes to mind – but given the expansive, cognitive abilities of a growing child, I’m sure everything contained within this app is completely fathomable, and able to be deciphered, tucked away into knowledge. Sure, the illustrations aren’t the greatest, but the app performs well, the narrator is loud and clear, and the app definitely has more potential than other, more static flashcard type apps in the App Store.

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*When using the promotion code to download for free, it’s on a first-come, first-served basis. Out of courtesy, please leave a comment below mentioning you’ve used the promotion code.

BAANZAAII!!!!

These crazy flies are the real killers of Kill the Fly. The Kamikaze fly is but one of the many winged pests you will encounter in this strangely addicting app by Playsteria, an appropriately titled company name, if I may say so myself. Kill the Fly will definitely drive you to hysteria, if in a playfully frenetic way, with its onslaught on flies, bees, and other winged catastrophes waiting to dive toward the pile of poo which you’ve weirdly been enlisted to defend. In FowlPlay we used poo as a weapon – in this game, it’s something to be protected. Hmm, I’m sensing another themed week! I’m sure my boss would love for me to pitch Poop Week on Appstruck.

Poop Week or no poop week, Kill the Fly means protecting a pile of it, and using your fingers to smash any attempts by the flies to dive toward it, in pleasurable insanity. The game begins oddly, with cheery music of the pop diva variety, one that would belong in a casino lounge alongside men in drag a la the Birdcage – or, just a terrible commercial talking about how such and such pharmaceutical can change your life. I always focus on the musical elements in games, because good music can give extra thrust to

Hordes, upon hordes of flies - oh, and a bumblebee

a game, make it more enjoyable. This music is just so far wayward from the premise of this game, that it actually works. It’s just as kooky as the kooky bug illustrations – which, I might add, resemble cutesy stickers I could buy from Japantown at Kinokinuya Bookstore – and just as kooky as the funny, very human-sounding buzzz and eeerroooo noises the bugs make. The whole look of the game is very cutesy and Asian in some of the motifs, and in some of the sayings by “wise master” Xou Han like, “Water has never been as good as ground to smash flies.” Yes, yes, this is very true, given ground is solid and hard and water is, well, water. Thank you, oh wise one.

Why is it that squishing bugs in games is so much more satisfying than in life? Well, for one, squishing real flies involves a slight shriek from most people, followed by a slow peeling back of the swatter, or, god forbid, your thumb, accompanied by a stretched out “eeeeeeeeeewwwwwwwwwwww.” Besides, when swatting a fly in life there is no splat, no squish, no sound of any kind other than the moan that escapes your lips. In this game, the squash sounds slightly curdled, rippling with blood and entrails (though there are none, only a blood splatter), along with a low, barely detectable crunch to round out a proper effect. It’s all so squishy and awesome, darting your fingers across the screen, tapping and squishing to your heart’s content. The housefly is of no concern, really – they buzz around in weird configurations, like those gnats that forever remain on the square trail they zip over your chair, and they usually never head toward the poo. They just know it’s there, somewhere. Their real purpose is to distract you in hordes while other, more impetuous insects make their appearance. The Kamikaze fly and the Fast fly are the two you really have to watch out for. Both make a straight beeline to the poo, with no other objective than to land, eat, and take away points from you. The Kamikaze yells BANZAI! and explodes like a bomb when you squish him; that is, if you can squish him, he’s a fast bugger, that one. The Fast fly is notable for his blue color and his varying sounds of eeeerrooooo, thhpptpppttt, nnnneeeeeeeeeerrrrr, and so forth. It’s pretty amusing, and he’s pretty easy to squish if you’re paying attention. The other two insects you see are the big, cumbersome large fly and bumblebee. Both sort of saunter around, just getting in the way with their large, thwap thwap sounds, and taking four or more hits until they finally perish beneath your thumb. They’re mostly annoying, though kind of pretty, physically.

Oh Xou Han, you never fail to disappoint.

You start the game in Paolo’s garden, and make your way through four rounds of that before gaining access to other levels. In Save the Crap mode, you protect the poo in one of three difficulty settings – Easy, Normal, Nightmare – whereas in Massacre Mode you just try to kill as many bugs as possible, dragging them this way and that, making sure combos and blood are an everlasting staple of the playing field. I prefer Save the Crap Mode, because mindless killing, while fun, doesn’t quite hold a candle to the poop game. In the poop game, the farther along in levels you get, the more obstacles and saving graces appear to add dimension to the game. Cacti, broken nails and glass, for example, wreak havoc on your thumbs when squishing plants, leaving blood fingerprints with your every tap and negatively impacting your score. Other obstacles appear in the form of water, sewer holes, and other purported “soft surfaces” that prevent you from squishing a bug in that setting. Tools of the bug-killing trade take the form of a large fly swatter, bug spray and more whenever things get too fly-ridden. In Nightmare mode, you’ll be using these a lot, because the ever-present swarm on screen will be driving you to hysteria in no time.

In the end, there’s really only one sentence I can recommend in advice. As wise master Xou Han says, with the gravest of sageness, “KILL THEM ALL.”

The app contains all the elements within the first game – alphabet flashcards with image and pronunciation tabs – but in addition, the developers tacked on two more game-oriented abilities that add a great deal more dimension that allows children to interact more. The See It, Say It section is a game where the user matches one of the three letters on top to the image pictured below. If a kite is shown, for example, and the letters K, J, Q, appear above, it’s up to the kid to figure out which letter works with the image, and then drag that letter onto the image. The letters are all drawn in a toy cube fashion, and

L for lion!

differentiate from each other with the use of different colors. The user may tap each block to hear the letter pronounced, and then tap the image to hear kite read aloud. The objective is for the user to logically reason which sounds mostly closely mirror each other, and therefore, which letter belongs to that word. Otherwise, if the user chooses incorrectly, the letter will simply disappear. Then it becomes a process of elimination – there are now only two letters left to choose, so obviously, it must be one of them, right? Eventually, your child will get the solution, right, and in the process, understand that J and Q have nothing to do with kite.When the correct letter is dragged onto the image, the image animates for a few seconds, as a reward for the user’s efforts.

The other new play option is Hear It, Hit It. In this section, an image appears below, as is customary, and three dots appear above, in the colors of blue, yellow and red. Each dot, when tapped, gives an audio clip of someone pronouncing a letter, such as “wuh” for W or “juh” for J. Once again, the user has to figure out which sound is appropriate for the image, and then drag that corresponding dot onto the image. If the selection is correct, the user is rewarded with a brief animation, sometimes children cheering and clapping. This section could definitely prove to be challenging for the young mind, and is definitely effective at encourage a memorization of sounds and their corresponding letters, and objects/animals that begin with that particular letter.

ABC Shakedown is what kids apps are meant to be – fun, interactive, and most of all, educational. For any child still learning his A,B,Cs and general language skills, this app is excellent for nurturing that beginning ability, and has a long shelf life due to the time it takes to acquire this ability. The animations could be livelier (how about a lion roaring instead of licking his lips?) to further engage the user, and some of the pronunciations are a little hard to interpret – the “f” sounds more like “shhh” and could just be a technical obstacles given microphones and recording equipment. Also, despite being very interactive, the app lacks any intuitiveness. You must read the directions to figure out how to use it – an older child or adult could obviously figure it out after some tinkering, but a young child definitely needs some direction. After initial instructions – a rubric how to use – it’s easy for a child to navigate. But, these are but a few flaws in an otherwise spectacular app.

fffff for fish!

People in this country tend to view bilingualism with an air of impressiveness, that it’s a rare skill few possess. They often reply, when asked if they speak another language, with astonishing sincerity coupled with a step back, “Oh god no, I don’t speak a word of Spanish.” There are many people who point to Europe as a role model, with its polyglot culture, and aspire for Americans to learn languages other than English – considering the large population of Spanish-speaking peoples in California, and the greater presence of China as a global power, it make sense diplomatically, to learn other languages. Given the United States’ position as a world power, a center of influence and global relations, it can seem embarrassing that many of our citizens cannot act as ambassadors for our country, only being able to communicate in their mother tongue. In some ways, it’s borderline lazy given our long-term status as the most powerful country in the world – English, after all, has long been considered the business language through which all other countries communicate. This may be changing, though, with China emerging as possibly a greater influence than the United States, and so our monolingualism has lately become an even larger issue of contention.

The developer of Little Pim Word Bag, Julia Pimsleur Levine, had such thoughts when she originally created the Little Pim concept in 2006. Having grown up bilingual, she felt there weren’t enough ways for a child in the United States to reap the benefits of a bilingual upbringing – foreign language classes usually don’t appear in public schools until junior high, and little to no educational programming was available for children to absorb, aside from maybe those Muzzy videos I, and the rest of my peers, remember from French class. The Little Pim DVD series is exceptional, has received many awards, and covers plenty of languages, including Spanish, French, Chinese, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, English, Arabic, German and Russian. The DVDs are heavily interactive, and involve many repetitions of phrases and words and concepts for children to watch and learn, much in the same way children imitate an adult’s word formations, later adapting these linguistic rubrics to their own, original thought. Given the exceptional nature of the DVDs, I had high expectations for the app by Animax, especially given the fairly limited supply of language apps peppering the App Store.

Little Pim Word Bag is cute, if lacking. Little Pim, himself, is as cute as ever, carrying his bottomless messenger bag wherever he goes, and pulling out objects of every type to share with you. I was a little disappointed that Little Pim only shares with you two languages – Spanish and French. It’s true, the original DVDs covered Spanish and French, possibly just French initially, and this app may very well just want to cover the original concept. I was hoping for Chinese to be included, though, instead of French, given its near vital importance today, but let’s face it: everyone loves the French language. It’s not entirely the most useful language, and it’s heavily romanticized, but many people desiring to learn another language favor French for its fluid and unique sound, resplendent with deep, guttural notes accented by a fluttering airiness, like the wind beneath a hummingbird’s wings. Chinese, also, is very difficult for Westerners to master, given its heavy reliance on pitch differences – one example would be that the sound “ma” depending on pronunciation, can mean either horse or mother. Regardless, I’m hoping the next Little Pim app will contain more languages to choose from.

The app is divided into three sections – eating and drinking, wake up smiling, and playtime – each of which contains its own unique set of words that correlate to the theme. The pictures for each section bob up and down, inviting your child to tap on them. Little Pim is shown in each, staring at you through googly red glasses, wielding a fork and knife, or laying back in redolence, happy obviously, from playing. For each section, Little Pim will bounce on screen, and introduce himself – “Hola! Yo me llamo pequeno Pim” for Spanish, and “Bonjour, je m’appelle petit Pim” for French. Little Pim will stand there on the grassy knoll waiting for you to tap him to begin the exercise; otherwise after several seconds, he’ll start on his own. Your child will watch as the Panda rummages about in his bag, and takes out something, which he’ll identify with an enlarged image of the object, and the written name beneath. For Eating and Drinking, Little Pim first brings out a cake, which miraculously remains pristine in all its chocolately goodness, and says the name aloud for the user: in Spanish, he says un pastel, and in French, he says un gateau, which funnily enough, almost sounds like un gato in Spanish, meaning cat. He’ll continue in this manner, until the section is complete; at any point, the user may tap one of the previous objects to hear the word repeated, and to give the image a second look.

Given my fluency in Spanish, I spent quite a bit of time brushing up on my basic French vocabulary (I was fortunate to begin both Spanish and French at an early age in private school, along with more intensive study in Junior High). My French accent isn’t the greatest – I have a tendency to roll my syllables together as in Spanish, and rumble my r’s, unconsciously – but despite being an adult, I really enjoyed listening to the bright music and reading aloud the names as they were voiced aloud to me. There’s no question: Little Pim Word Bag is an effective game, and it does have a trance-like quality to it. Besides, Little Pim is just so gosh darn cute. But, more languages would definitely be a great asset, as would a secondary feature in the app that would use the vocabulary learned in a contextual situation, possibly using the words together (“Let’s have lunch! What would you like to have?”) – having just a list of words may become boring, quickly, for most youngsters.

But, Little Pim Word Bag has its heart in the right place. Many people never become fluent in another language, and whatever bits and pieces they jumbled together in High School often go unused, and then, after a period of stagnation, most knowledge eventually just disappears. Starting off our kids young, on programs like the Little Pim series, can go a long way in at least instilling basic groundwork in languages other than English. By using the Little Pim Word Bag app, hopefully parents will see its benefit, and be inspired to check out the full DVD series.

DynaZoo is DynaCool!

DynaZoo is an interesting app. It’s supposedly for kids, but as an adult I found it pretty difficult… then again, my girlfriend does say I’m pretty childish sometimes, so take that with a grain of salt!

DynaZoo, by Apps4U, is a matching game on methamphetamine and it’s unapologetic about it – their sub-title is “Animal Matching Frenzy” and the game is just that: a frenetic frenzy. I dove right in to this app without reading the instructions and did OK, but I went back and read them and realized there were some things important in there that helped me out later, so I would recommend giving them at least a once over. For example, if there’s a particularly crowded region you can double-tap it and a “thunder” will sound and everything will shake and redistribute – pretty handy. Aside from a few intricacies the controls are simple: tap on an animal and find it’s pair. There are four levels of increasing difficulty. On Easy the animals are on a grid and shake themselves into a jumble of outlines; Medium is the same, but the animals redistribute faster; on Hard they redistribute rapidly, change size and flip horizontally; on Pro they redistribute, change size, flip and fade in and out! Despite the complications, I didn’t find that the game didn’t get too much harder with the higher levels, which is a good thing, because it’s pretty hard to begin with. After a few games I settled down and was able to drastically improve my time – oh yeah, it’s timed and your first score will make you feel terrible!

Animal overload!

The graphics are really cool. They remind me of various sand art videos you can find on YouTube – check one out here – only they’re way cooler. There’s a high-score section and a “Cool Stuff” section, the latter being an advertisement of sorts, but whatever, it’s unobtrusive.

I only have two suggestions, or issues with this app. First, once you’re in the game you have to exit the app to go back to the main screen, or lock the screen to pause the game – there’s no pause option. Second, if you make an incorrect match thunder strikes and everything is shaken up. but the two incorrect selections remain selected. You have to go back and deselect one or both in order to make a correct match. I found this extremely frustrating and time consuming. With so many animals in such a small area you’re bound to accidentally match two animals (I know I did) and feature that automatically resets your selection would be very helpful.

Despite these drawbacks I would recommend this for anyone over the age of 5 or 6 (female) and 25 (male).

Color Me!!! loading screen

Color Me!!!, by Izabela Zabek, is a coloring app for kids from 2-6 years old, so the app says, but really I don’t think it’s an app for anyone of any age. Don’t get me wrong, the app is presented very nicely and runs smooth; there are plenty of different drawings which one can color – there are sea creatures, mammals, birds and numbers; the graphics are nice and the previews of the drawings are of exceptional quality; there are nice features such as the color chooser sliding as you tilt the phone. The only problem is that the app lacks any kind of creativity. Here’s the app in a nutshell:

Choose a picture, move the slider and press on the screen to fill in a section of the picture.

Choose the drawing type

What’s the problem with that, you may ask? Well, how is this in any way stimulating? There are plenty of apps out there that are intuitive, pretty and stimulating, but this isn’t one. There is nothing here to stimulate hand-eye coordination or problem solving. In fact, the app is so well developed that it takes away from the functionality. Take, for example, the preview pictures – they’re very illustrious. Now, try re-creating the picture you see. The color pallette at the bottom of the screen does not allow for much of anything beyond the primary colors. There are different shades and different colors, but nothing that resembles the color in the previews. In fact, try to find brown or dark green, I dare you.

A seemingly cool feature this app has is the ability to shake the phone to reset the picture. “Neat”, I thought, when reading about it. But then I realized this was an app for kids. How will a child feel about losing his or her masterpiece on the way to school when the phone drops out of his or her hands as a result of mommy going too fast over a speed bump? The use of the built-in sensors is a good idea and can work, but a simple reset option (with an “Are you sure?” fail-safe) would work better. Sure, the parent may have to intervene, but they already have to intervene in order to export the photo to the camera roll or to Facebook (good idea, by the way, parents love to brag!).

1 is the loneliest number

One drastic change I would like to see would be to have the child color in the picture manually, as opposed to just pressing on the screen. Maybe the developer could have the app recognize the area of the screen first touched and only allow that to be colored until the finger is released. This may be difficult to implement, but I’m sure there’s a way to keep the children in the lines while still allowing for creative license.

There are some good ideas in Color Me, and it was developed with care, but the app just isn’t thought out and executed well. Color Me!!! may be worth taking a look at, if your child needs a distraction; or better yet, if you need your child distracted. But all in all it doesn’t stand up to criticism, let alone practical use. And if there’s any demographic that really uses things, it’s children.

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*When using the promotion code to download for free, it’s on a first-come, first-served basis. Out of courtesy, please leave a comment below mentioning you’ve used the promotion code.

Furballs! title screen

In my last post I mentioned that Block Off didn’t allow the display to flip depending on the orientation of your phone. Well, neither does Furballs!, developed by Dan Russell-Pinson, but at least this time the orientation is to my liking. Furballs! is a matching game where you guide floating little balls of fur into groups of 3 (and later 4) in order to remove them from the screen. You can only guide lone fur balls – the others float aimlessly in space, awaiting their match. They greet balls of the same color with a cute little chirp. The newly appearing balls also say, “Hi”. Pretty simple right? Yes. However, the developer does some nice things to mix it up a bit. First off, the fur balls come in all shapes and sizes (well okay, they’re organizes into shapes and sizes). Also, some different elements are introduced throughout the game. There are different types of meteors and there are satellites, the latter sticking to your fur balls, causing only grief. Luckily, the meteors are here to help: one meteor freezes the balls (yikes!) and one burns them (ouch!). Satellites are also affected by the meteors. The meteors can be real life savers in the later levels.

So I’ve explained the components, what’s left? Well, the point of the game is to clear the screen, much like a game Jackie reviewed a while back called StoneLoops of Jurassica. Actually, this game is almost a reincarnation of StoneLoops, but I think it’s different enough that I could, and will likely, play both. It’s also similar to a series of games I used to love for consoles, Bust-a-Move and Super Bust-a-Move. But I digress. The point of the game is to avoid getting too big. There’s a meter at the top of the screen, the shape of which I can’t explain (is it a branch??), that shows approximately how much bigger you can get before you lose. When you get alarmingly close, an alarm starts sounding. I think it might even be the alarm sound from the movie Alien. If you’re lucky, you will get a meteor or some luckily random colors to clear some groups. Otherwise you have to start the level over. One of the things I like about the game is that it saves your progress, and there are no game-overs or continues. You just play.

Furballs come in different shapes and sizes

As I stated earlier, the game is relatively simple. Beyond the meteors and satellites it’s really about being able to judge the movements and direct your balls appropriately – a little like Flight Control, actually, but incredibly easier. The game plays off this simplicity in good and bad ways. For example, it’s refreshing that there isn’t a score beyond what level you’re on. By the way, there are one hundred and fifty levels, whew! I’m currently on 40, so it could get more complex. Even if it does, I do appreciate a slow ramp to insanity. Games like Flight Control can be a little intimidating, to say the least.

The major downfall of the game doesn’t have to do with gameplay, graphics (which are nicely detailed, by the way) or sound. No, it’s the incredibly dull, nonsensical cut-scenes that weigh this game down. They are neither clever, nor funny, nor entertaining. They’re just simply… there. There’s no story, no explanation. Maybe the developer thinks this will attract the younger audiences? I don’t think so. Maybe there’s a need for intermission so your eyes don’t dry up or pop out from staring so intensely at the balls in space? Could be. At least you can choose to skip them and go back to hurling balls in space.

I’ve noticed that quite a few iPhone games include tidbits that don’t quite work, or are just distractions. From StoneLoops to the iPhone version of Bust-a-Move, there are makeshift story lines, or features that are just plain unnecessary. One of my favorite games of all time manipulated the idea of a storyline in a way that I have yet to see replicated: Shadow of the Colossus. Of course an iPhone game is not the same as a console game, yet(!), but they don’t have to settle for cheap tricks. Furballs! manipulates the gameplay and combines elements of different games cleverly and seamlessly, but suffers from unneeded, annoying fluff.

I remember being horrible at Scrabble when I began playing regularly some time in college, jumping for joy when I first hit those double digit scores, and performing obnoxious victory jigs whenever I landed a bingo, to the other players’ collective annoyance. Becoming a better player has definitely humbled my exuberance. Scrabble, I think, is especially hard for erudite folk with an appreciation for the vagaries and intricacies of language. It’s easy to think too critically of a game where the targeted placement of small and common ox can earn you 30 or more points, while the more impressive, and articulate eremite (a recluse, especially for religious reasons) may only tally at a paltry 12. I remember thinking that Scrabble took the joy out of creative vocabulary, the pleasure of laying down an obscure word, in favor of memorizing two-letter word lists and Q-word lists, in the silly, regimented hope of achieving some impenetrable word arsenal. These word lists that every serious player commits to memory just seemed so confining and didactic to me, to warrant any permanent spot in my weekly rotation of board games. But, like a phonetic hooker in those dank, forlorn corridors of unused word games, Scrabble tempts you and weaves words and anagrams in a way no other game does.

Scrabble was released for the iPhone a little while ago, but like most board games cum iPhone games, it has a longevity that renders it ageless. For this adaptation, EA Games took the game by the reigns and added a certain panache that I have come to equate with Electronic Arts: a slick, bouncy soundtrack, excellent interfaces, breezy multiplayer, and easy in-game navigation. The design of both the main screen and the board are digital clones of the actual Scrabble packaging, the red lines, and the Scrabble font near exact replicas of the originals – a definite plus for we, Scrabble aficionados in need of a perfect homage. To play, you may opt for a Quick Play, or connect with Facebook to enjoy a game with your close friends, or just opt for wi-fi multiplayer, to perhaps play with a stranger in your current location. I’m a solo kind of gal, so I usually tap the Quick Play and challenge the CPU, taking great enjoyment in my linguistic overtaking of its, apparently, computationally-challenged battlefront (it has yet to beat me). My one disappointment with Quick Play – and where other games like Words with Friends win me over – is you can only play one game at a time. This is pretty absurd considering you may want a backup game should you hit a roadblock with the first. But, true to Scrabble, or any physical board game, once you start a game, you should see it to the end.

I tend to turn off the music to allay any outside disturbances (how serious do I sound?), but considering it’s light, and possibly the least obtrusive music I’ve heard thus far for a game, I often just keep it on. I also don’t bother with uploading my own soundtrack to Scrabble, but it’s nice to know the option is there, and I’m sure many people play considerably better with Lady Gaga serenading them about their Poker Faces – maybe I’ll try that. By default, Scrabble peppers you with Game Tips – how to move your tile with one finger, while using another finger to move the screen; double tapping to zoom in and ditto to zoom out; pinching to accomplish the same – but you can turn these off, as any regular iPhone user will intuitively figure out how to control the game. The game board is naturally set at a distance so you may view the entire playing field, but whenever you move a tile to play, the game will automatically zoom in to your approached location – otherwise, you may double-tap anywhere on screen to zoom in on a particular location. When setting down tiles to form words, the game will automatically calculate the score, making decisions easier when oscillating between two or more possible plays. Should a word not be valid, the game will tell you, highlighting the words in red – you may then easily take back this play by tapping the Recall button, placing the tiles back on your rack. Shuffling is also made easier with a Shuffle button, to shuffle at random, or you can manually move the letters yourself, definitely more convenient when you’re working out those pesky anagrams.

It’s too bad the relative ease of this Scrabble won’t make winning the game any easier – but wait! For this Scrabble, Electronic Arts threw us a freebie with the Best Word option. Hardcore Scrabble fans will surely scoff at this option, seeing it to be a cop-out for n00bs who don’t have the patience to think critically about what possibilities lay ahead, and that may be a valid concern. It’s definitely easy to drift your glance down at the reassuring heart button, oozing warmth with its Best Word, beckoning all that is safe and assured. I say ignore the button if you’re already an adept player, confident in your abilities, but I definitely won’t tell beginning players to overlook its help.

Sometimes it’s good to get a freebie. For a game like Scrabble, it can point you in the right direction.

I’m not sure what I was expecting with Sherlock Holmes: The Game is Afoot by GOSUB 60. Maybe I was expecting a twist on the classic Clue game – or classic Sherlock Holmes, really, since Clue was probably influenced by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s stories, written quite a bit earlier in the 1800s. Maybe I was just expecting a straightforward game, with clues and the like, mysterious folk afoot, for you to deduce from written vignettes and sketches, the murderer or thief. The Sherlock Holmes game, as it turns out, is actually more clever, and less clever than that.

The game takes you along a few storylines (of which there are many volumes, continually updated, with three stories apiece) rife with black and white sketches, and weathered, yellow pages filling the speech bubbles of the characters onscreen. After reading through the dialogue of the characters, you must view a scene rife with clues on how to proceed, or to give you further insight into the diabolical mind of whomever you are pursuing. Each story retells a classic Sherlock Holmes case by taking you through the original plot, and arriving at the key environments of each mystery, where after finding the clues, you solve the mystery. As a prize, and incentive to keep playing, with each mystery solved, you unlock the corresponding story’s eBook, for your enjoyment (it turns out this ties in to why the game requires an internet connection). I think that’s rather cool, but then again I grew up on my father reading me tales from Sherlock Holmes’ adventures. The scenes in the game remind me of a board game I used to love playing, called Scrutineyes, where in three minutes you had to scour a very detailed scene to pick out items beginning with the letter “A” or any otherwise specific category. The pictured scenes were always beautiful in their absurdity and clutter, featuring creatures and hob nobs, trinkets and tchotkes, and this Sherlock Holmes game is very similar. I always lucked out with my knowledge of dogs – whereas my brother would always write down the blanket terms of “hound” or “terrier,” I could whip out my distinct profiling for names like Airedale Terrier, Afghan Hound, Appenzeller, Akbash Dog. Less critical thinking is involved with the Sherlock Holmes game, as you are given a list of items to find, but plundering the scenes are entertaining enough, and, as it turns out, quite challenging. Like any sleuthing detective, I love a challenge.

The scenes are like rooting through an attic holding generations of possessions, so don’t be afraid to zoom in constantly, to find that miniature apple or bowtie camoflauging itself as the base of a lampshade. Normally, it’s easy to find hidden items in digital games like these, because the interactive items are ever so slightly outlined in black or white, and stick out like sore thumb, visually, from the static background, making for easy pickings. Not so in this game. It’s almost as if the game anticipated this graphical glitch by inserting many other interactive items not included in the list. In one scene, a red beret stood out from its perch atop a statue’s head, but after hearing the loud, downtrodden, negative music indicating I had chosen wrongly, I realized it wasn’t on the list. Happier music, along with a starry animation that cloaks and then disappears with the found item, accompany a correct choice. A problem I encountered in this hide-and-seek game – aside from the general frustration of trying to find wee, little items in the various nooks and crannies on screen – is that my fingers, small as I perceive them to be, often had to tap twice or thrice before selecting an item. Sometimes, I’d think I had simply chosen incorrectly, and I would continue my search elsewhere, only to come back, much later, to the original scene and realize that the small, fuzzy, winged butterfly, was actually the butterfly I had originally thought it was. Choosing wrongly and hearing that angry buzzing noise doesn’t seem to hamper your success in this game – there are no demerits or points removed – but it does deter you from selecting correctly if you had just tapped a tiny bit to the right.

Should you ever be overwhelmed with finding a item, a green question mark in the lower right acts as hint guide. Tap it, and a small circle of stars will radiate over the impossibly concealed item. Once again, it seems as though no demerits are given for using this aid, and since it refreshes after each use (about 12 seconds), you may use it for every item on the list. This would defeat the purpose of the game, the thrill of the hunt, the scalp-scratching mystery, but I’m sure many an opportunistic would gladly abuse this ability, given the lack of repercussion and how quickly it speeds up the game. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle would be ashamed. But hey, every detective needs a little help here and there – where would Sherlock Holmes be without his merry Watson, after all?

Going along the same lines of iWriteWords and ABC Maze, with abcTris Animals, gdiplus takes the falling letter scenario to more spelling heights, taking the original premise of choosing letters in the right order, to adding timing and spatial deduction to the equation. Now, instead of simply tapping letters in the right order, your child must sort falling letters into their proper arrangement at the bottom. It’s a challenging task for the growing mind, and the quirky sound effects and colorful, cutesy drawings will help draw your child’s attention. I knew it drew mine.

Grand adult that I am, brimming with higher education and that white ivory tower complex, I cracked my knuckles with cocky upturned grin and tapped on Hard mode (there is a choice of Easy, Medium and Hard), my expression belying my inner thoughts of “Puh, yea, we’ll see just how hard you are, kids game. Mua ha ha ha.” I was so entrenched in my adult superiority, I even left the game unattended for the first 30 seconds to tend to some tea (or Theraflu, actually, for ye others stricken with the wintertime chills), and, boy, was that a mistake. My cocky upturned grin instantly took a downturn into a grimace as I realized I had no idea what was going on. Letters were collecting in rows in obvious disorder, and more were falling with a little girls voice, mischievously ringing out “B!” “A” “X” as if mocking my indecision. She, obviously, knows what’s going down – both letters and my pride.

Of course, after a quick look-over and three seconds of deliberation, I understood the objective was a bit like a word puzzle. An animal is shown – a bear, let’s say – and letters from its name start falling at random, leaving it up to you to move the letters around the screen, with your finger, to land in their appropriate order. gdiplus poses a new angle in this game by not having set boundaries for the letters. For their other games, which I’ve reviewed previously, a child might have the letters “d,b,r,i” in front of her, so she would logically surmise the order of letter selection to be “b,i,r,d” once she solved the anagram (with helpful bird illustration in the background, to boot). Tapping the letters sent them whizzing to preset boundaries, where they would then be voiced aloud for your child to hear, along with applause and children cheering. In abcTris, the whole bottom screen is your child’s playing field. She may start the word “bear” directly flush against the left side of the screen, or she may start the word in the middle of the screen. Whatever decision she makes, spatially, will have repercussions for all subsequent words, making the game not only more challenging with time, but with future space continuum. If she places “bear” at the middle of the screen, the next word of “goat” may not fit if starting from the left. It’s a very good problem-solving game.

I, personally, like the design of iWriteWords the best. Something about the colors and the bouncing bird is all so vibrant and cheery – it just reminds me of children and their youthful, rose-colored world. ABC Maze was a bit more metallic and trendy, hip even, I thought, but was effective as well, holding certain strengths over the original game. abcTris, I think, is the most challenging and complex of the three, which is offset by the toddler-ish drawings. I think the design should more effectively appeal to the older age of child that would play this game. For simple word games, I would think ages 4-5 would be appropriate, and based on my interactions with nieces and nephews of that age, I have the feeling they might view this game as too “babyish.” Who knows, maybe kids today in certain lights are way more precocious than previous generations (and by precocious I don’t mean intellectually or intelligently, just maturity in regards to how they perceive material possessions and their own self-identity). Then again, I started reading at age 2, so perhaps a game like this would have appealed to me at that younger age.

Regardless, it’s a great game for any kid testing out his spelling skills.