Game Reviews

Supertype review - A word game that sometimes spells brilliance

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iOS
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Supertype review - A word game that sometimes spells brilliance
|
iOS
| supertype

It's always nice to see a word game doing something a bit different. After all there's only so many riffs on the Scrabble template that you can sit through without them losing a little bit of their sparkle.

But Supertype takes the concept of the word game and then throws them around. The end result is sometimes brilliant, sometimes flawed, but never boring.

Word to yourself

The twist here is that the game chucks physics into the mix. You're trying to get letters to hit a series of different markers. Sometimes they're typed out already, other times you need to type them out yourself.

There's no right word to spell in most cases, rather you just need to make sure that some of the letters end up in the right place. You need to think about the shapes of the symbols you're typing, and how they're going to fall when they hit the different obstacles.

Other times you need to draw lines to push falling or ascending letters to end up where you need them to go.

supertype iOS review screenshot

You need to use spaces too, and there's plenty of challenges that require you to think carefully about what you need to do.

Everything is presented in a really intriguing way. You finish a level and a spray of punched holes spread out in front of you. Tap one and you'll move on to the next challenge.

The problem is that some of the challenges come down to little more than trial and error. You'll bash out a string of letters, see what happens, then try another. It's less of a word game, more of a letter game.

Word upload

When Supertype gets things right, it's a brilliant example of the ingenuity that's part and parcel of the mobile gaming world. When it gets things wrong, it's a bit of a flustered mess.

Still, it's a game that's worth checking out, if only for those soaring moments when it really kicks into gear.

Yeah there are problems, but you'll work your way through them quickly, and the next challenge you come across might just blow your mind.

Supertype review - A word game that sometimes spells brilliance

When it's good, Supertype is great, and it's worth sticking with it through the lower points to get to those soaring heights
Score
Harry Slater
Harry Slater
Harry used to be really good at Snake on the Nokia 5110. Apparently though, digital snake wrangling isn't a proper job, so now he writes words about games instead.