After Philipp tested Word Mole on iPhone, I had to take a closer look at this mobile word game on my iPad. So I got the Word Mole HQ version from the App Store to give it a try.
Who developed Word Mole for iPad?
Like the iPhone version, Word Mole for iPad was developed by Aqeel Abbas for Earch Eagle Inc. Since there is only a small site on blogger.com, I suppose this is not an official release from the real developers of Word Mole on Blackberry. The “complete profile” on this page is empty and a quick search on Google reveals nothing useful about neither company nor developer. We will see how long this version is online without any reaction from Blackberry.
I wasn’t able to find out for how long this Word Mole version is online. Version 1.5 is out since March and for 1.3 at least the website mentioned December 2011. Still, for such a famous word game the discussion around it is quite small.
Not really convincing
So, for the last evenings I got my tablet and played Word Mole on iPad. Well, I have to agree with Philipp’s diplomatic judgement. Word Mole was not challenging me for a long time. I can understand, why it works on smartphones, because it is entertaining for a short time like waiting at the bus stop. But I can’t imagine spending my evening with a cup of tea and Word Mole for iPad. And than there is not only the lack of real challenge, but the bad implementation of this game.
Many comments on the developers website and in the Apple Store tell you that the game often freezes. Actually, this didn’t happen to me so far. What bugged me the most was the bad graphic for a paid app. It seems to be just a scaled iPhone layout.
English, German or Spanish?
Word Mole HQ for iPad comes with English, German and a Spanish dictionary. Of course, I didn’t only try the English, but also the German version. As other commentors from the App Store already noticed, the word list is quite buggy. Word Mole HQ accepted the non-German word SUN, but didn’t like the very simple word FLUR (Engl: corridor). I had the feeling that almost half the words I entered weren’t accepted. That is indeed very frustrating.
Word Mole HQ for iPad also includes a best score list and some kind of buddy list. But I didn’t see how to connect with your friends through the game, so I suppose this was more or less just copied with the graphics from the Blackberry version.
Conclusion
We were already wondering, if Blackberry itself is going to publish its own version of Word Mole on iPad or iPhone. This didn’t happen so far and due to the holding popularity of the game, I totally understand that someone just gave it a try. Anyway, spending more than a Dollar or Euro on this version of the game can be very disappointing. At least I can not imagine playing it on a regular basis on my iPad.
Do you play Word Mole on your iPad? How is your experience with that? Did you give the Spanish version a try and is it as buggy as the other ones? We would love to read your comment. Or are you the developer of Word Mole HQ? We like to hear from you as well.
If you play Word Mole on your iPhone you can also participate in our current poll.
Word Mole for iPhone is…
I play this game on my iPad and sometimes when my score hovers around 16,000, suddenly when going to next level, it gives me a screen that’s all A’s. In other words, it stops working and I loose all my points. Has anyone experienced this as well and is there a fix for this. It’s very frustrating.