Boggle Review

Remember that game from when you were a kid, where you take 16 cubes with letters on each side in a special container and then shake it to make an odd selection of letters? Chances are you won’t until you see the game for yourself, and chances are the last time you heard the term “boggle” was when you watched Demolition Man again for the 50th time, where a random man asks the deranged Simon Phoenix “What is your boggle?”

What is your boggle indeed, says EA Mobile, which has developed the game for the iPad following their iPhone version. The larger screen is a huge benefit for Bogglers, but unless you’re a fan of the game or like playing with friends, you’ll probably find this puzzler fairly boring after a few days of play. Except, of course, if you enjoy learning new English words all the time under pressure … or if you play with some of the more advanced modes.

The standard game of Boggle is a three-minute romp with 16 letters, where three letter plus words must be connected to earn points. Five letter words earn two points, six letter words earn three, etc. The game of Boggle is mostly about perspective and discovery, where finding words by random letters in sequence will force you to think differently than other word puzzle games like Scrabble.

Though the repetitive nature of the game, the standard time frame and the constant learning required to actually progress isn’t as stimulating as one would assume. Then again, when Hasbro’s Parker Brothers made the game, they meant it as a multiplayer experience, where up to four people wrote as many connecting words at once with a three-minute timer as they could, then compared. The iPad version has the ability to play together, but it lacks the subtlety and intimacy that a simple pen and paper contribute.

The multiplayer in Boggle is simple: the first player shakes the board and gets three minutes to find as many words as possible, then the rest of the players get the same exact board and get three minutes themselves. Ironically, this makes playing Boggle with friends very boring, because everyone else has to wait for whoever is on the iPad to finish!

Advanced modes allow for slightly different styles of play. One includes a panic flip, which will flip the board with 20 seconds left in the game for some quick last-minute points. Another allows for the first and last letter of any word to switch position, which makes the game much more interesting because the board isn’t static. Finally, time settings can be adjusted from one to 10 minutes per game.

Ultimately, Boggle is a very specialized game. It plays well, and besides for a poor song-only option when listening to your own music, there is nothing wrong with Boggle. That said, EA Mobile didn’t really push to make Boggle a unique experience on the iPad like they did with Scrabble. It would benefit greatly if there were an iPhone download to input your letters so anyone playing could do so at the same time, not one at a time. There’s a lot of room for improvement, but if you are a huge fan of Boggle, then you’ll be glad to have this App instead of carrying around that darned cube and letters.