Board Game review: Boggle Flash
I didn’t think I would do a review on a non-computer game but I liked this game so much I though it deserved one.
Boggle Flash is based on the popular game that I used to play as a child, Boggle where the aim was to make as many words as you can from a gird of random letters within a time limit.
The only rule was that each letter in the word had to be adjacent to the next on the gird, diagonal, horizontally or vertically.
Boggle Flash takes that concept and mixes it with technology. Instead of a egg timer, letter dice and a box, you are now presented with five independent tiles with an LCD screen on each one.
The same concept still applies, making words out of a selection of letters with one shown on each tile. Only now, you can physically move the tiles and place them next to each other to form words.
That actually amazed me. The concept and technology is relatively simple but is well executed and far more satisfying then playing on an iDevice or console because I had the tactile feedback from physically picking up and moving the tiles.
Also, to be able to arrange and sort out the tiles in any manner I like on the table meant I felt unrestricted in how I played the game. I could place two tiles to the side and add/remove tiles to/from either end. Move pairs of tiles from the front to the rear or even mix them on the table to shuffle the order.
The game offers three modes, all of which can be played in single player and two of them for multiplayer.
Mode 1 single player only and called Boggle Flash. The aim is to get as many 3-5 letter words as you can within the time limit from the letters of a random 5 letter word. The results show how many words were made and how many could be made.
Mode 2 is Boggle 5 Letter Flash. The player has to make as many 5 letter words as possible and the game ends when the player fails to make one within a time limit.
Mode 3 is a variation of Mode 2 called Boggle Pass Flash. The rules are the same as above but is played like hot potato so each player takes turns to make a 5 letter word and is out when they fail.
Each mode can be played with 4 tiles instead of 5 as well with minimum of 2 letters per word.
The game is very responsive and managed to keep up with me in detecting words. I am not sure if it has censored out certain words but ‘crap’ was fine. The tiles don’t need to be perfectly lined up either which means the fast pace nature of the game doesn’t slow down.
Instructions and menus were easy to follow and I was up and running within a couple of minutes.
I do wish there was a multiplayer version of Mode 1 as I found that the most fun out of the three. If player 2 onwards could use the same letters as player 1, then that would be enough to make it competitive.
And while the tiles flash and beep when a valid word is made, it would have been nice to have a something to signify that the word wasn’t valid rather then left wondering if the game has detected the word yet.
Despite the minor flaws, the game does come highly recommended from me as it is great fun to play and can see it suited well to a family environment especially with kids.
Available from Firebox @ £19.99, Amazon @ £17.03 and Play @ £17.99.
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