Game Reviews

Outworded

Star onStar onStar onStar offStar off
|
iOS
| Outworded
Get
Outworded
|
iOS
| Outworded

Words are the building blocks of the world. It's through language that we're able to express and explain the things we experience. We're soaked in words from the moment we're born, and each of us has a vocabulary that's expanding all the time.

So why is it so difficult to find the word 'huh' written in a word search? I mean, technically that's not even a word. But surround it with letters and drop a ticking clock on top of it - as Outworded does - and we become flustered wrecks.

Words urchin

The game is a word search. You've got a set number of words to find, and a certain amount of time to find them in. Spot them all in time and you win. Fail to spot them all in time and, surprisingly, you lose.

Once you've spotted a word all you have to do is draw a line through it and it gets crossed off your list. And that's about all there is to the game, though there are tougher searches and you can play around with the amount of time you've got.

There's also a two-player asynchronous multiplayer mode that pits you against another human. Here you're not trying to find all of the words, just more than your opponent. It makes for an even tenser experience, as you scramble to find the extra word you need while your time slips away.

Everything is nicely presented, and there's a sheen to proceedings that's sometimes missing from simpler games like this in the App Store. There's nothing astounding about it, but there's nothing broken about it either.

There's one

Outworded is a tricky one then. It's very, very good at what it does, but what it does is a word search with some multiplayer components thrown in. It looks smart, but that polish can't hide the lack of any real depth.

If you like word searches and you've got a competitive streak, then Outworded is going to be perfect for you, but if you're looking for a word puzzler with a bit of depth you're better off trying elsewhere.

Outworded

Outworded looks nice and the multiplayer is fun, but in the end it's just a word search game. And that could put a lot of people off
Score
Harry Slater
Harry Slater
Harry used to be really good at Snake on the Nokia 5110. Apparently though, digital snake wrangling isn't a proper job, so now he writes words about games instead.