The Wonderful World of Word Games

Wonderword: The mack daddy
of all word search puzzles.

^ Alliteration FTW.

I love playing games of all kinds. I often pretend that life is a game that I'm trying to win - but not the style of "winning" perpetuated by one Mr. Sheen, though. Games are one of many things that make life more fun, and I am a huge advocate of fun.

My favourite type of games are word games. To me, nothing is more fun than formulating a series of words to earn points, or searching for a bunch of words in a 15 x 15 grid.

Why do I like word games and being a wordsmith so much? Well, there are several reasons for that.

1. I suck at math.
I am admittedly terrible with numbers. They intimidate me. I was a perennial failure at math in high school, although I was good at it in elementary school. I am to words what some people are to math. Working as a freelance writer and journalist - and also composing daily article for this blog - allow me to work with words on a daily basis, which I enjoy.

2. I jump at any chance to increase my vocabulary / word knowledge.
It's no secret that playing word games can increase both your vocabulary and word knowledge. Wonderword, one of my all-time favourite word games - more on that below - often features words in their word lists that I had never seen or heard of before. And even when I'm not playing word games, my friends and I enjoy learning and finding the definitions of new words, some of which have not been part of the everyday vernacular for centuries.

3. They're good for the mind.
Many moons ago, I read an article in the newspaper that playing games and doing things like crossword puzzles, Sudoku, etc. are extremely good for the mind. Doing something as simple as a word search puzzle can help prevent the occurrence of neurological diseases such as Alzheimer's. If your mind and brain are constantly at work figuring out cryptic crossword clues or something of the like, it will help to keep your mind sharp for years to come. So if you ever have a chance, find the puzzles page in your local newspaper and start working on those word puzzles. I make a daily habit of doing so.

There are virtually millions of different word games out there, which means that there is something for people of all skill, intelligence, and age levels. My top five favourite word games are as follows:

1. Wonderword
Created by Quebec native David Ouellet and his mother, Wonderword, in this blogger's opinion, is the mack daddy of all word search puzzles. The game is simple - you are given a list of words that fit a certain category. They are all hidden within a grid, and your goal is to find them all. Once you have found all of the words in the list, you will be left with a specific number of letters; the exact number is always supplied at the top of the puzzle. These letters spell out the Wonderword, which is an extra word that fits the given category. You can find out more about Wonderword, its history, and how it's made by visiting the official Wonderword website.

2. Text Twist & Text Twist 2

Created by GameHouse, Inc., Text Twist is a fast-paced word game where you race against the clock to spell as many words as you can. You are given six letters - seven in Text Twist 2 - and you then must form as many smaller words as you can using these letters. In order to continue playing, you must spell out the six or seven-letter word in each game. Skillful players can keep the game going for several consecutive rounds this way. My high score is an even 129,000 points. I'm not sure how many conseutive rounds I played to earn that score, but I can tell you that it was probably a ridiculous number.

3. TextMate

I've only recently discovered this one, which is available on the Games app on Facebook. Games is an app that has several games under its banner, of which TextMate is one. Like Text Twist, this game is also played against the clock. You are given a series of partially-completed words that have from one to four blank spaces next to them. For each one, you must fill in the blanks. There are usual several possible answers for each word, and the game supplies you with the number of possible matches for each word. Each correct answer earns you points and adds a few seconds to the clock. In addition, the more consecutive correct answers you give, the higher your bonus multiplier will go. I got the bonus multiplier as high as 120x at one point, and I finished the game with a groundbreaking score of 1,945,800 points. Definitely a fun little game to play if you're looking to kill some time or test your word knowledge.

4. Scrabble

Who doesn't love Scrabble? Whether you play the board game version or one of the many online equivalents that exist, Scrabble is always lots of fun. In this classic crossword game, you play against several other people, and build an increasingly large crossword by placing tiles. Bonus tiles help to increase your score, and the person with the most points at the end of the game is decleared the winner. My best scores in this game is a 261 in the original version, and a 540 online. The worst part of this game is when you get stuck with seemingly useless letters like K, Q, V, X and Z, but if you know how to use those letters properly, you can score some big points.

5. Bananagrams

I call this one "Scrabble on Crack". In this game, everyone starts with 21 lettered tiles from a pool of 144, and must make a a mini-crossword with them. When one person uses all of his or her letters, they call out "Peel!" and everyone draws another letter. When all the letters in the pool are used up, the first person to declare "Bananas!" is the winner. I've played this game in both online normal forms with several friends before, and it was lots of fun. Points are not scored in this game, but if they were, I probably would have had a score somewhere up in the high thousands.

So if you've ever got some spare time on your hands, consider playing a word game of some sort. Doing so will help to keep your mind and brain functioning at a high level for years to come.