Disclosure:I was given Ace Of Words by a steam friend as opposed to the developer but I don’t provide biased reviews.
Ace of words is a word game that offers gamers with upto 8 letters to create words against the clock. Â Even though this game is available on steam it is a port of an app store game. This is noticeable as there is an advertisement to buy the game on the app store on the main menu. Furthermore there is no attempt to mask or conceal this fact. Which I think is bad as it should be its own version rather than a straight port.
Although the appstore version is only 99p, this version of the game is a cut down version of the game. Â Primarily because, there are microtransactions that are pay walls you must buy in order to unlock content. However, the main differences between both versions are that the steam version has the automatic inclusion of the steam scoreboard, achievements and trading cards. The microtransactions are on the app store version these being hints, removal of adverts and access to the full game. Whilst the Steam version is free from microtransactions.
The game itself starting from the menu isn’t visually impressive. Looking at the menu the visual style aesthetically both quality and design wise is quite simple. The style is very reminiscent from an early flash game that one can find online as it is so basic. My first impressions were based on the aesthetic value. This unfortunately didn’t offer me much hope in this game getting better.
Gameplay wise, this game is essentially anagrams against a clock. Although this game is easy understand and play on. The execution of the game is poor on many levels. The design of the game is easy enough to criticize. The technical aspects of this game are also very basic, particularly on the games support for foreign languages. In this game if you decide to play in a foreign language there is no differences made. I started to play the game in German the text was still in English.
The in game dictionary is also very pretty peculiar as there’s a wide choice of words selected within the dictionary. Some of the words omitted include everyday words like ‘rip’. Surprisingly the dictionary even includes words from foreign languages including ‘ese’. This I think is odd as this game is based upon the english language, so it should only feature english words and should cover words that are featured in the dictionary. I also think that the game should have its own dictionaries for players who aren’t playing the game in English. I would have expected each language to have a dictionary of the relevant language.
Thankfully the game’s length isn’t too long as each game is as short as 120 seconds long assuming you don’t add any words to the list. Lengthwise, this game is playable for any duration of time. The length of a game is based upon how good you are at playing the game. However, in case your goal is to earn every achievement this game is completable in a few hours. Provided you have a decent grasp of the English language.
Overall I wouldn’t recommend anyone purchase Ace of Words. Since the game in my opinion is incomplete at least for the ipad version anyway. This game also offers nothing more than a simple word game that many websites offer a similar experience for free. There are also better word games with more content on offer. The only time I would recommend playing this game is if someone on your steam friends list gives you this as a present and that is only to farm the cards.
