What is Wordstro?

Wordstro -- an easy-to-learn word puzzle with increasing difficulty and both solo and challenge play!

Wordstro offers:

- A word puzzle where you can select letters in any direction, making words.

- Strategic elements; special tiles you can create and use, adding to the fun.

- A Relaxed game, where you can take your time and enjoy finding words.

- A Timed game, where you can play against the clock.

- A Challenge game, letting you challenge your Facebook friends to a single level. 

- Multiple saved games, in all game types.

- Excellent mental exercise!

- Statistics, lists of words played, and trophies galore!

- Rich graphics and lush sounds.

Mix all this together and the result is Wordstro, a wonderfully immersive, fun, word-gaming experience for players at any level or any style of play. Challenge your friends with the Challenge game. Or play the Relaxed game on your own. Or play the Timed game for a quick 3-minute break. Whatever your play style, Wordstro's got you covered. Want to put the game down and come back to it later? No problem. You can save it mid-game.

For all you serious word-gamers out there, if you've been looking for a word-game that will challenge you, you've found it! Just don't forget your thinking caps, because you WILL need them. Getting through level 20 of the Relaxed game is not easy. You'll need strategy and all your word-gaming knowledge and skill. Seriously, it took us, the designers of this game, a while to win our way to level 20, but we did it. Without hints or cheating. And we challenge you to do it too!

So, whether you're a casual player looking for a quick fun-break or a serious word-gamer looking for a serious challenge, Wordstro will be the word-game you keep coming back to, game after game.

Wordstro Help

Wordstro  has three game types, and there are many styles of play -- you can have fun with the lower levels, challenge others, or complete an entire game by reaching level 20. You can save your game at any time, and restart it or start another; Wordstro lets you have many games in progress at the same time. The following sections describe all of this.

Game Types

You can choose the following game types from the Wordstro dial:

Relaxed: Concentrate on getting your best score no matter how long it takes to get to level 20. You level up each time you clear 100 tiles from the board. The game ends when you finish level 20, or the drill gets to the bottom of the board, or there are no valid words on the board, or you chose to end it from the Menu button on the game screen.

Timed: Plays the same way as Relaxed game but now have the added challenge of beating the clock to finish each level.

Challenge: Challenge a friend, or play their challenge, and see who can get the highest score on a single game level. Challenger chooses the minimum word length, plays the level, and sends it to a friend. Once both of you finish, you both get the results.

You can save any type of game while it's in progress, using the Menu button.

How To Play Words

Basically, shorter words score less, longer words score more. Difficult tiles (like Z and X and Q) score more than easy tiles (like E and S). For example, the three-letter word EAR scores 6 points while ZEE scores 13, and the five-letter word TOPIC scores 24 points while QUARK scores 31.

Levels and Word Length

Relaxed and Timed games: The minimum word length is three letters for the first set of five levels. At level 6, the minimum length increases to four. At level 11, it increases to five. At level 16, it increases to six. If you finish level 20, you won!

Challenge game: The challenger chooses a minimum word length.

Non-Scoring Words: You can play a word shorter than the minimum, but it must be at least three letters long. It will score 0 points and will not decrease the tile count. The "Scoring words" count at the bottom of the screen includes only words of minimum length or greater. The "Word count", listed once you've reached level 6, includes all possible words, including non-scoring words.

Hints

Can't find a word? Try a hint! It will show you a scoring word.

Special Tiles

You can create special tile types by playing words, as follows:

Lightning Tiles

These form if your word has four to six letters all in a row or column. Lightning explodes when you use it, destroying all letters in the row or column. You get points for the letters you destroy in addition to the letters in your word.

Block Tiles

These form when you make a square or rectangle. Blocks don't vanish when you use them. There are a few ways to destroy them, and a few interesting uses!

Drill Tiles

Drills leap onto the board if you use too many minimum-length or shorter words, and they appear sooner as you proceed through each set of five levels. The drill tile drills down once every move, in relaxed and challenge games, but it moves all on its own in timed game. Don't let them drill through the bottom or it's game over! But there are some good uses of drills, too. There are also at least three ways to destroy drill tiles. You can conquer the evil drill!

The Menu Button

 The Menu button on the game screen pops up these three options:

Listing Your Words

The List Words button lists the words you've made in the current game. If it's a challenge game, it lists the words for the single level in the challenge. If it's a timed or relaxed game, words are listed for each level. The list displays the most recent words first; the first word of a level is the last word on the list.

Saving Your Game

You can save your game in Wordstro! Wordstro lets you have many saved games. Once you save a game, you can start another game of the same type or a different type, or restart your game immediately, or later. Here's how it works.

When you are playing a game of any type, tap the Menu button at the top left, and choose Save Game.

That's it! Your game is saved. You'll see it in the list of saved games for that game type. You can choose to start a new game, save that game, and you'll see two saved games in the list. You can have many saved games. For example, you can have one relaxed game at level 13, where you're trying to win through level 20, another relaxed game that you started to fool around with, a couple timed games, and a challenge or three in progress all at the same time.

Ending Your Game

Sometimes you might want to end a game. For example, you're building a challenge and it's just not going well, so you won't want to send it to anyone, Here's how it works.

When you are playing a game of any type, tap the Menu button at the top left, and choose End Game.

That's it! Your game is ended, you're notified if you got a new high score, and the game information is added to the statistics.