Review
Word (im)perfect
by Craig Grannell (November 8th, 2010 at 5:00 pm)
Game: Moxie and Moxie 2. Publisher: Blue Ox Technologies. Price: 59p/€0,79/99¢ each.
Buy Moxie. Buy Moxie 2. Download Moxie Free
For a while, most iOS word games were high-speed Boggle rip-offs, but the domination of Lexulous and Words With Friends has turned the word-game landscape into a mountain of second-rate Scrabble clones. Moxie is a bit different. It has more similarities to Upwords, but hugely streamlines the game, making for a more rewarding single-player experience.
It's Moxie!
In Moxie, you get a three lines of five spaces and you tap to choose where to place the currently displayed letter. As soon as you make a word, scoring starts on that line; from that point on, you can only add letters that change the existing word into another proper word, otherwise you get a ‘twaddle’ penalty. If you can’t think of anywhere to put a letter, you can pass, reducing your potential score.
52 letters later and that’s all the game has, bar a mode that gives you bonus points for ‘moxie’ words (animal, mineral, vegetable), but it’s pretty good fun, despite a certain lack of polish.
It's Moxie 2! Very slightly different to Moxie!
And then there’s Moxie 2, currently on sale for 59p/€0,79/99¢. Aside from the ’2′ in the title, it took me a short while to figure out what was different in the newer game, but it appears you get up to six-letters per word, 64 turns (rather than 52), a ‘daily challenge’ mode and an undo. I know, I know, don’t all rush at once.
Still, since Moxie 2 is marginally better than its predecessor, it’s the one worth picking up—and it is worth picking up if you enjoy word games. Just be aware that this is more sedate ‘Sunday afternoon with a crossword’ than action-packed ‘OH NO THE TIMER’S RUNNING OUT’ fare.
The developer has also made Moxie 2 available to play as a free flash game on the web.