I’m completely addicted to Words With Friends. I bring a Scrabble board to family events. I have fun scouring Thesaurus.com and inserting random big words into emails to my co-workers. Though I love word-based games, though, I tend to be hesitant when a new one is released. I don’t have the time or desire to try a rehashed version of Scrabble again outside of what I already have.
Quarrel, on the other hand, goes a bit of the Puzzle Quest route; it takes two successful genres (anagrams and strategy) and mixes them together to create something fresh and, consequentially, exceedingly worth my precious minutes.
If Quarrel were any more polished it would be a mirror. The game makes an excellent statement about how solidly-designed and well-executed an iOS experience can be, from the visual design and graphic interface to the board layouts, to the audio. It’s very well put-together and captures a board game look and feel effectively. (Non-surprisingly, the game began its life as a tabletop game.)
The game itself plays like the classic Defender of the Crown or Risk games, in that the goal is to amass a (small) army and defeat neighboring opponents, hopefully capturing the entirety of the board. Battles take place by creating words from collections of letters on the screen, with their length depending on the amount of “soldiers” in your squad. The battles are timed to last just a few seconds, so words better come quick. Like Scrabble, each letter has a value, and the higher word — or fastest time in the case of ties — wins. The idea is novel, even though the base concepts aren’t new. There can be up to 4 “players” in each match, with one human and up to three virtual opponents. A few modes are included, like a pseudo story quest and a few quick-plays.
It all plays so well together that it’s easy to get lost in a full match. In one recent match, I spent a total of 86 minutes in an epic back-and-forth battle between myself and Helena that saw each of us nearly clearing the board several times each until I finally did her in with “Quits”. I would match the same word as her, only to be a split-second too late. Or, in one instance, I had been mesmerized by my 6 tiles and posted a lengthier word, when she posted a higher value combination at just4 letters. It was, truthfully, the longest bathroom break I’ve ever had. And I loved every grueling, facepalming minute of it.
Quarrel isn’t a very deep game, and that’s potentially the game’s kryptonite. It’s very easy to minimize a match mid-word and jump over to WinEveryGame.com, find the best combination, and jump back. The amount of cheating I’ve resorted to is sickening, and I’ve climbed swiftly up the game’s online leaderboards. The game needs to penalize us for jumping out, or else it’ll remain easily completable. There are daily challenges, but are all based on slight modifications to board layouts that don’t reward us with any new experiences. And the big one: there’s no multiplayer. The game has hopped intended homes from tabletop to XBLA to iOS, so just getting it into our hands was a challenge for developer Denki. Hopefully the feature shows up in an update soon, or else it’s easy to put the app in a folder and forget about it.
Classifying Quarrel as a word game with Risk built in is a bit misleading, as the words are actually a secondary mechanic to the capturing of spaces on a board. The reverse is probably the best way to describe it: Quarrel is a light strategy game that utilizes words in place of weapons in conflicts. It’s refreshing and enjoyable, albeit a little lacking in content, but worth a look if you’d like to take your word skills to a more pulse-pounding level. Just, you know, don’t cheat like I did. Even if the temptation of finally beating Helena with just 5 tiles leaves you with a cold sweat in the middle of the night.
This review was based on copy of the game for the iPhone purchased by the reviewer. It was played on the iPhone through the completion of Domination mode, with several daily challenges and quick matches played.
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