The only thing that would make it better is if you could type the letters instead of clicking them. Clicking the letters is kind of annoying, honestly... makes me prefer TextTwist, which has less interesting words, but is faster to play.

This was pretty fun, but I agree with Molly that TextTwist is better, even though it doesn't keep high scores.

The problem is that a lot of it has to do with luck. Often times I got two of the same vowels, like A, and rarer letters all at once. I mean, if you get an S or an E its easy street, and later levels can become easier than the earlier ones due to this. It could probably use a ranking system used in scrabble. Also, it was annoying not to be able to type them. I like the version of this game on Miniclips better.

Jeez, these games are hard.

I got to level 17 with 4309 points before "INSOMNIA" defeated me.

And I agree, the clicking of the letters slows things down, and while the reorganizing of the letters is nice and sometimes leads to new insights, a shuffle button would be really nice.

I still like this a lot better than yesterday's game, though. That one wasn't fun at all for me.

I will throw my lot in with the rest. Text twist does seem to be a better implementation of the game for a couple of reasons:
It shows all possible words at the end
It allows typing
After you find the longest word you can still continue finding more
If you make a mistake you do not have to clear the whole word.
Not that this is a bad game- there are just better examples.

my high score is 1083... i suck

Clicking aside, I find this implimentation much better than text twist for the simple reason of having a much better dictionary. In far too many internet word games part of the challenge is figuring out if a word is going to be in the system. I had no problems with this one. I was surprised to find dirty words accepted as well (ie "c*nt" is in the game's dictionary). Not dirty, but also unexpected, were anagrams of "lesbian" and "bisexual". This game is solid, well written, and uncensored. I approve.

Furthermore, in response to NME, the "target" score you have to reach to pass each level is adjusted to the ease of forming smaller words with the letters presented.

Ooh! Countdown! Richard Whiteley may be gone, but it's good to know I can still play this game and remember him fondly.

For word games, my favorite is Bookworm. I haven't tried TextTwist, but will look it up. This one is awesome so far and enjoyable. Hey Jay, why don't you have any references to PopCap? They have a ton of good stuff to play.

That's a good question, Scarfist. While I have posted mini-reviews of Insaniquarium and Zuma here, usability has been a significant focus when finding games to review and post. When I initially wrote about Insaniquarium, it was written with an ActiveX component that made it difficult to play for some.

I do have plans to include more reviews of games from the major commercial sites: Pogo, Playfirst, Game Zone, Pop Cap, Yahoo, etc., as I move forward with a new site that I am putting together. More details on that later this fall. =)

um... If I may comment on the inclusion of commercial games, I actually dont like the idea of reviewing more of those. Too many sites have some "review" of game and the "buy here" button next to it. That means its is not actually "review" anymore, its just another ad and I dont believe one word from such sites.

While Jay has been honest in the reviews and has told details about things that dont work correctly or warned about possible problems. You dont see that kind of things in sites about commercial games.

And finally, who else will review all the wonderful strange little non-commercial games? I feel that big commercial games get enough publicity anyway, but those lovely finds from all corners of the world would stay unreviewed.

We scored 15535.. at level 41.. before the clock beat us.. we were ten points away from completion though.. ANYBODY know any CHEATS we cud use :)

just wanted to point out that text twist does save high scores, you just need to be using explorer in order to do so, i like this one just because it's something different

1684 before i got bored and quit. it sucks that there is no way to put a word back up so you can add an 's' without clicking on all the letters again. it's like text twist but not as fun :)

This game gets boring.

Actually, you can type words into this (don't know if they've updated it since the previous comments).

Why not just play the multiplayer version? It's also typable, and it's just ten straight rounds. Although some people have found how to cheat, it's less common than many games.

you can type in this game... or at least i did, maybe they changed something but i maximized it and typed just fine.

Drew

Level 1-no code
level 2-Statepen
level 3-Sidewalk
Level 4-Lampost
Level 5-Parklane
Level 6-Msoffice
LEVEL 7-DWELLING
LEVEL 8-GLASSBOX
LEVEL 9-RAADMAAN
LEVEL 10-TOYBLOCS
LEVEL 11-BLADERFUN
LEVEL 12-PAVEMENT

I love this game ever since i first found it here. Thx for sharing this one, Jay (and staff)!

A little note: the skin of the game has changed since this was posted here so now it looks different than it does at the top of this post. Maybe updating the pic would do good.

... or maybe there are different skins to choose from? If so then shame on me :)

Level 33, 11866.

Somewhat addictive because it just goes and goes and goes. But also frustrating because I'm not really seeing where the levels get harder. Thank goodness you can stop in between them! I'm currently on level 28 but have to give my kids a snack!

Does anyone know any tips for the 8 letters multiplayer? I'm a pretty smart person with a fairly large vocab, but I can't ever score very high in this game. Is there a trick I don't know about? I do know you can type words and hit enter.
Also, many of the words used are not spelled correctly, or are not really words, or are not American spellings. For instance, theatres was a word that came up in level 5 today. I had it with the non-British spelling theaters. Anyway...

I recall playing Text Twist, a very similar game (except instead of a target score you needed to find a word using all 8 letters or you'd lose) last year. I have a few friends who are way better at it than me, I guess it shows our ways of thinking. I always type in the shortest words, the first things that come to mind, so this game is more for me.
I can't imagine how much more difficult it would be if I couldn't type, so I'm glad that feature was in, though no backspace makes me sad. These kind of spell-the-word games like Bookworm Adventures and Text Twist are good to have someone else sit with you and to play with! That was a horribly constructed sentence!

17,013 at Level 36.

I agree with others--A Shuffle function would be nice. It would also be nice if the Clear function worked with a keyboard key (like TextTwist, you can press "Backspace" to Clear, and "Space" to Shuffle). Otherwise, I really like it.

I really enjoyed this game. I did through level 45 for 22, 288 points. The words get harder and there are some unusual "crossword puzzle" type words used.
Fun!

To add to my above post, I agree with Jessa's comment about a "shuffle" sort of feature....I kept hitting my spacebar as in other text/word games, waiting for the letters to switch around - and I found myself randomly typing letters in for the bonus rounds, just to mix up the letters. Silly.

I like this game... however one big negative for me is the amount of time that you have to wait for tallying the score. I mean, does it really have to run down that bar corresponding to how many points I earned (it's no surprise, c'mon), before doing the time bar?

Sometimes it takes more time for the score to be tallied than it does for me to complete the level... grr. Maybe I need to learn more patience - ha ha.

you can type the letters in...

There is a game similar to this one but it is two-player. Kind of a head-to-head version of TextTwist called Wordslide.

I like the game but get VERY frustrated when my high scores don't register in the Week's Top Scores when the score qualifies. Anybody know the secret to having your high scores count?

Does 8 letters in search of a word have a "pause" function? How long will it wait for you to return?

I got the high score.. which is pathetic if you ask me. I sucked.

I really enjoy the game. However, I would enjoy it MUCH more if it didn't glitch.

I found that sometimes, if I guess the word on the first few tries, it gives me partial credit, but doesn't give me the round. Which means I am left scrambling to find alternate words, when I've already guessed the right one.

Several times now, I've gotten up to level 30 or so, guess the word, only to have my time run out while I'm trying to think of other words after the fact.

No bueno. It kind of defeats the purpose.

My top score was 10558 at level 31 but it kicked me off prematurely. I got the correct word "querying" but for some reason it didn't recognize my entry. I play this game a lot and have had this unfortunate experience twice. I've emailed the company but of course I haven't received any response.
If you're going to work up to the higher levels, you might want to prepare yourself to be kicked off unfairly despite having entered the correct 8-letter word.