Textropolis: Awesome Word Game for iPhone

I have a real treat today for fans of word games. It's Textropolis ($2.99, iPhone/iPod Touch), and it's by far my favorite word game on the iPhone. It's a simple and beautifully designed game, and boy is it addictive -- I'd rather be playing it right now, rather than writing this review.

Textropolis is an anagramming game. It gives you the name of a city (starting with Kingstown) and you have to build words using the letters from that city's name -- for example, KING, TOWN, KNOT, STOW, and so on. Words must be four letters or longer, and plurals do count as new words. For each word you enter, you get points, your city's population grows, and a plane flies by showing the word's definition (nice!). As you gain points, a cartoonish city grows in the background, showing your progress visually. Also, progress within each city unlocks the next city, so you can continue to move on and make more words.

What makes Textropolis so great is that it's simple and beautiful. It's all about the words, and the interface is clean and well-designed. Because you get instant feedback on each word (including the definition), the game leads you along, encouraging you to make more and more words...and your progress is fast enough that unlocking new cities becomes addictive. "Just one more word, then I swear I'm done!" Here's a video showing Textropolis in action (note that they've sped up the action to show you more of the game...in practice, I don't play nearly this fast!):

For all you word nerds, I strongly recommend Textropolis ($2.99). If you don't want to drop three bucks, try Textropolis Lite (free), which is limited to just three cities.

Got a favorite iPhone game? Let us know in the comments! (I'm particularly looking for new word games to distract me from this one....)