Bookworm Adventures - Gameplay

Gameplay

Players guide Lex the Bookworm (voiced by Chief Creative Officer of PopCap, Jason Kapalka) through a number of stages, battling creatures along the way (which are largely based on Greek Mythology, tales from 1001 Arabian Nights and Gothic fiction, while the foes in the game's sequel are based on Fairy tales, Chinese mythology and Science fiction). Each battle consists of Lex squaring off against a given foe. Both Lex and his adversary have health meters (represented by a number of hearts), which, when depleted, signal defeat. However, unlike more traditional role-playing games where players might injure their opponents with arms or magic, enemies in Bookworm Adventures are damaged by forming words.

As in the original Bookworm, words are formed from a grid of available letters, although unlike the original, the letters used to form the words need not be adjacent to one another. The longer the word which is formed, the more damage is done to opponents. Similarly, words generated using letters which are less common do more damage than those using only common letters. Each turn, players can form a single word, while enemies use one of their available attacks to injure Lex, heal themselves, or otherwise make the battle more difficult. If victorious, Lex automatically recovers all of his health between battles; however, there are certain stages called Survival Battles (still called boss battles in the first game) where Lex will not be healed between enemies.

After a certain number of battles are won, a boss of increased difficulty is encountered. If players defeat the boss, they complete the stage and are rewarded with a treasure item. Treasures provide special abilities to Lex, such as a reduction in damage inflicted to him, or more damage generated from words containing certain letters. In some cases, rather than receiving a new item, an existing item is upgraded. After the player has accumulated more than three items, Lex must then choose which three items to bring along on later chapters. In the sequel, the player can also be awarded a companion, which gives a beneficial effect every four turns.