TextTumble

TextTumble attempts to breathe new life into the aging falling block puzzler through use of the English language. Instead of matching coloured blocks or creating lines with plummeting tetrominoes, you’re matching letters to create words.

Letter tiles drop from the top of the screen and can be manipulated using a slider lining the bottom of the screen. By sliding letters into place, you can construct words vertically (from left to right only) or horizontally.

The slider is unfortunately cumbersome and often impractical, requiring you to move your finger on one section of the screen whilst watching another. Allowing you to move each tile by actually touching it would have made more sense, not to mention making the game more intuitive.

When you create a word, the relevant letter tiles change colour. A quick swipe of your finger removes the tiles from play, adding points to your score. You can also shake the phone to remove all current word matches.

Obviously the more unusual the word, the higher the points haul: using letters such as 'Z' or 'Q' in your matches also grants more impressive rewards. You can also chain together your creations for bonuses. For example, if you spell 'hello' horizontally but also manage to link the 'H' to 'high' spelt vertically, you bag extra points.

Since the field of play is only six blocks wide, you’re naturally limited to short words. This makes things pretty easy - we wouldn’t relish the idea of spelling ‘supercalifragilisticexpialidocious’ using falling blocks - but it also means that things can get a little cluttered.

Thankfully, falling tiles can be deployed as weapons to destroy incumbent ones by dragging down on the screen with two fingers. This causes the block to drop sharply, taking out anything beneath it. It removes points from your tally, though, so it should only be used as a last resort.

Along with letter tiles, special pictowords regularly come into play. These tiles can be used to form words, the image on the block substituted for some larger word. For example, a picture of a hand can mean ‘hand’, ‘palm’, ‘clap’, and so on.

It’s an inventive way of expanding the scope of the game, but it’s not without problems. Initially it’s difficult to remember for what each pictoword can be used because they possess multiple meanings.

Also, some of the words that are flagged as legitimate are somewhat suspect. TextTumble is backed by a dictionary (you can use it by pausing the game at any point, which is a neat touch), yet sometimes it accepts words that aren’t even contained within this built-in resource.

Ultimately, the biggest issue with TextTumble is that by forcing you to choose words over shapes or coloured blocks the game is far less spontaneous. Whereas Tetris succeeds because it’s based on split-second timing and fast-paced action, TextTumble requires a more methodical approach which yields an experience that's less compulsive and addictive.