Crobble Review

Word games are easily many people's go-to game when looking for a quick five minute session of something satisfying. Crobble easily taps into that market, and while it's not perfect and a bit slow to start, it's still a pretty tempting proposition.

The idea behind it combines Scrabble and Tetris-style tendencies, but at first it'll seem a lot simpler than either. Letter tiles come gradually streaming down the screen and the player has to create words from them in order to clear a space. Words can be any length of three letters or more, so it's reasonably easy to clear quickly. However, bigger words mean that one moves onto the next stage that bit faster. Along the way, various obstacles and bonuses emerge. Bomb tiles drop down, enabling one to clear surrounding tiles or obstacles such as the gray tiles that love to get in the way of progress. No points are gained for clearing areas in this way, but it's handy when besieged by letters that aren't of much use at that time. Bonus points can be gained through repeatedly activating a length multiplier or using letters that are located within a highlighted circle, denoting extra points.

After a while, other modifiers also appear such as one that involves adding a number to letters and requiring players to create words with that exact number of letters. Some letter tiles can also only be used with adjacent letters, depending on the positioning of an arrow on the tile.

More in-depth features such as these don't emerge until after the player has spent $1.99 to unlock the full game. It's worth it, especially as it unlocks new modes such as a relaxing Zen mode and a fast paced Blitz game, but Crobble doesn't quite sell itself fully in the initial 10 levels that are freely available. That's unfortunate as it's much more interesting after this point. The game also is sometimes a little picky when it comes to tapping on letters. Sometimes it's all too easy to hit the wrong letter, and given that the only way to undo such a mistake is to re-tap the letter, it can be a nuisance.

In the end though, Crobble is still quite satisfying to play. While it doesn't re-invent the wheel, it scratches that 'five more minutes' itch well, proving to be worth taking a look at.