There are simple pleasures in life. For example, a cup of coffee, the quietness of the early morning, and the daily crossword puzzle. While we still like our coffee, and we all probably enjoy a quiet moment every now and again, most of us probably don't sit down with the daily crossword, anymore. But that doesn't mean our love of word puzzles has dissipated into thin air, but more likely that an overwhelming amount of us have ditched our daily newspaper subscription. If you're the type who misses crossword puzzles, maybe you should check out
Bonza, a beautifully designed word game.
Bonza takes the concept of a crossword puzzle and a word search and links them together, which in turn makes for an entirely new game that we thought was pretty darn fun. To play, you simply connect the letters together to form words, sticking to the standard crossword puzzle design. Each level has a theme, and the themes range from things like "line," where answers could include "cruise" or "bottom," or themes like "hues," where answers could include words like "red" or "violet." Fans of games like
7 Little Words will enjoy this game, because it's a familiar format. There's no time limit, no move limit, just a relaxed game that is designed to give your brain a bit of a workout.
Every so often you'll come across a level that has a "mystery" clue, and while these ones tend to start out somewhat harder than normal ones, we found ourselves breezing through them once we figured out what they were asking. When you win levels, you get coins which can be used to buy hints if you get stuck. We were actually surprised at the sheer amount of coins you could get just from winning a few puzzles in a row, a pleasant surprise considering the app does offer the ability to buy more coins.
One of our favorite things about the app is easily how beautifully designed it is. Minialistic, with sort of an overall ethereal theme, the app is easy on the eyes and ears. The music is distant, echoey, and designed to fade into the background as you play the game. We really appreciated this, as the game definitely feels like something you'd curl up with to relax. Our only major complaint about the game is that there is a relatively small amount of puzzles included with the purchase of the app, and additional puzzle bundles come in anywhere from $1-$3. Still, its rare to find a word game that has this much thought into the overall design and feel, so what you might be missing in content is made up in design.
If you're a big fan of word games, this is a charming little game that will offer you a decent amount of entertainment. Sure, it's light on content, but we don't think the price tag for more puzzles is incredibly outlandish.
Bonza is available for iPad and iPhone
and costs $1.
Who Bonza is geared toward:
If you're passionate about word games or you're looking for a good game to relax with at the end of the day,
Bonza's something that should be in your collection
Who Bonza isn't geared toward:
If you aren't the type of person who likes to settle in with a word search or crossword puzzle, this probably isn't going to be for you.
-Amber Neely (
@SurferAmber)
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