Thank you Lightwood Games for sending us this game to review!

My daughter and I enjoy word puzzles and have enjoyed many rounds of Boggle together. Worcle (word circle) Worlds is similar where you have to form words from preset letters, but it’s different since new letters are added until the goal is reached, or the letter bar fills up and your game ends. The 3DS touch screen works well, but you can also use the circle pad if you prefer.

I wasn’t expecting a story to go along with a word puzzle game, but there is one. Worcle Worlds were once filled with letters and words that happily rearranged as they pleased until a vortex came and sucked them all away. The worlds are now lonely places lacking their previous vocabulary. If you can create enough words you may be able to restore Worcle Worlds to its previous glory.

In total, there are ten worlds and each of them have different rules and challenges. While you can play any of the worlds in the local or online multiplayer mode, the single player campaign requires you unlock the worlds one by one. To unlock the next world you need to make fifty words in the current one. Once that goal is met, a time attack mode becomes available if you’re looking for an additional challenge.

The first world, Opetus, allows you to form three letter words and the trickier letters are not available. Harder letters are slowly introduced until the full alphabet is in play. Then four letter words are mandatory. The next challenges include vowel shortages and missing common letters like E and S. If you can tackle all of these hurdles, you’ll probably find your name on the leaderboards. It was fun comparing the scores between my daughter and I. One of her scores beats mine by one point! The bigger the words you form, the more points you’ll get. Bonus points are also awarded for clearing out all of the letters.

Forming words with random letters is not easy. I like how the level menu keeps track of the best word used in previous sessions. It’s a bit awkward when those words include lick and queer. I was able to form other eyebrow raising words like tit and tits. Arranging cuss words with the random letters is easier said than done in this title so I’m not sure if it’s possible or not. The closest I got was the word shot, but I didn’t get credit for that one for some odd reason.

Each world has its own theme and music. My favorite backdrop was Sampana with the falling leaves in the background. Kalnas’ falling ash with the volcano in the background looked pretty good too. The visuals didn’t blow me away, but they get the job done. The music is decent and there is a fair amount of variety there too.

Overall, Worcle Worlds is both fun and challenging. It’s best enjoyed in multiplayer so tell your friends about this game if they love word puzzles. The price on Nintendo’s eShop is $11.99 which is quite a bit more than free iOS version with in-app purchases for removing ads. If you have an iOS device it may be worth checking out there.