Exclusive: Hands on with Oh My Word! 2 on iPhone

Language is both rigid and flexible. The number of permutations of the 26 letters in the English alphabet is huge. Even if you stick to the rules and avoid creating words like ‘kfbjskjdfh,’ that still leaves billions of words like ‘hurfadulous,’ ‘timbarosity,’ and ‘smit’ waiting to be called into action.

That’s what makes it flexible. What makes it rigid is that the number of new words created every year is relatively small. For all that some resent the inclusion of ‘blog’, and ‘leet’ in the modern dictionary, these represent just the merest sliver of a fraction of what could be dreamed up. Despite appearances, the dictionary’s entry requirements are extremely strict.

In the forbidding dictionary of video game ideas, Mobile Pie’s Oh My Word! 2 is like a new word. Well, technically that accolade goes to the first Oh My Word! game, which came out earlier this year, but since I didn’t play that one I’m going to bestow it on its successor.

The object is to guess a five letter word using a process of alphabetical elimination. If the hidden word is ‘HEDGE’, for instance, you might discover this by first guessing ‘MUMMY’, which is about halfway through the alphabet. The word ‘MUMMY’ will appear on the screen below the five blank squares representing the word you need to get, indicating that the word you’re looking for comes before ‘MUMMY’ in the alphabet.

If you then guess ‘BARMY’, that word will appear above the row of blank squares, letting you know that the mystery word comes somewhere between 'BARMY' and 'MUMMY'. Next, you might guess ‘GLARE’, and then ‘IDIOT’, and so on until you hit your mark.

The first Oh My Word! stopped about there, but the sequel takes the idea slightly further. For a start, it adds two extra modes to go with the original Classic: Survival and Time Attack. The former lets you guess words against the clock, and the latter challenges you to find five words as quickly as you can.

On top of these extra modes, there’s also Plus+ integration, so that you can compare your word-triangulation performance with that of other players.

These extra modes bring variety to what must have been a fairly slim package in its original form. And even with them Oh My Word! 2 has a slightly truncated feel. The absence of words with more or less than five letters, bonus power-ups, and some kind of multiplayer is conspicuous, and we hope to see some or all of these features in the final release or through updates.

However, putting what could have been aside, Oh My Word! 2 is a genuinely original idea and the gameplay works extremely well. It merits a place in the dictionary. More features would prolong its appeal, but even if it hits the App Store in its current state it’ll be worth the 59p asking price for most people.