Kevin C. Wong

SpellTower+ (2021)

SpellTower+ is a word game and another excellent game from Zach Gage.

In the base game you have a 9x13 letter grid with some dead spaces and some yellow (double score) and blue (eliminate row) letters -- blue letters are the harder to use ones like Q and X. Tap and trace to make words anywhere on the grid with bonus points for using yellow and blue letters. Those letters disappear (and long words take out surrounding letters) and higher letters fall down to fill the space. No new letters appear so it's all about making the big words and thinking ahead to get letters to come down so you can make other words.

Search is a 7x7 grid where you are trying to make words that use the central letter, which has a star. Letters three squares away are yellow and score 3 points (regular letters are 1 point). Find the word that scores the target 1-, 2- or 3-star points. I guess it's setup so you can make one good word at the start and you need to find it. You can also make zero-scoring words to make letters fall so you can make the big word but that's a lot of thinking.

Puzzle starts out with a 5-high letter tower but after each word a new line is added at the bottom and game ends if a letter reaches the top. My favorite mode.

Rush is like Puzzle but if you take too long a line is automatically added. I don't think quickly so this game mode is quite difficult.

Graphics are nice and simple. Sounds are subdued so you can think. Quite polished UI and game play. It's also a fun word game.