WordHero is a word puzzle game developed by SVEN Studios Corp. and based heavily on word searches. The board is a series of jumbled letters and though you are not given a specific list of words to find, you have free rein of the board. You can create words any which way you like: diagonal, horizontal, vertical, backward, etc. as long as they are connected.
Sometimes the words must fit a theme, like food or buildings. The catch is that each game is timed and you only have approximately 2 minutes and 25 seconds to find all the words you possibly can. This makes using our Word Unscrambler kind of impossible, but if you’d like to try, here is the link.
I found the gameplay quite likable, but the timed aspect can get quite stressful. As someone who looks for word games in order to relax, WordHero didn’t meet the requirements. Besides being timed, I didn’t like that you had to wait between games. Whether or not you are interested in the leaderboards, this waiting period can get very annoying.
WordHero Leaderboard
WordHero’s focus is on leaderboards; each board you play is scored against other players and the total possible answers. I have placed second at best, but with practice, I’m confident anyone can hit the top. The network appears to be international, with plenty of players showing up from across the pond and the Americas. You can also view your overall progress in graph form, which lets you know what your average scores, words per game, and games played are. Your best scores are here too, including the best word you’ve played thus far.
WordHero Community and Frenemies
In the game itself, communication between players is non-existent. Instead of a chat feature, or in-game emojis, SVEN Studio Corps. provides a link to a WordHero community in Google Plus. It is a somewhat healthy and active community with most posts about a day to a week apart. Members are free to talk about anything relating to the game, including showing off their high scores and problems with the gameplay or app. But be careful: Google Plus will soon be history!
WordHero appears to be missing a feature (or it just hasn’t worked on my phone). When you tap on what appears to be a friend list icon, you’ll see a list of “frenemies” and “tagline bans”. Any friends you add will be in the “frenemies” list, but “tagline bans” remains completely blank. We can assume this list is meant to include inappropriate taglines that have been banned from the game, as a kind of joke center. It must be pointed out, however, that downloading this game is not subject to an age restriction.
Add Friends on a simple Way
Adding friends is very easy, all you have to do is enter your friend’s username and they are instantly your friend. There is no need for them to accept the offer or vice versa. There does not appear to be any benefit from having friends, other than to keep track of their score versus yours.
That said, being able to add friends without any restrictions might upset anyone with privacy concerns. For every other player on the leaderboards, you can see their country of origin, the last time they played, what rank they are, and their “rtg”, which I believe stands for Real Time Game score in this case. Not much information is revealed, but it might be enough for some.
WordHero Rewards: What Rewards?
Unlike most word games, there are no rewards and no hint system if you need help finding a word.
WordHero Ads
Ads in WordHero come in the form of skinny banners at the bottom of your screen, but only during the time you see the leaderboards. Microtransactions, in a way, play a part here. You can pay to remove the ads, but since they are so unobtrusive, it might not be worth it unless you want to support the developers.
WordHero Graphics – Blue Period
Everything is a shade of navy blue and white save the game’s logo, which is quite colorful. As uncomplicated as that sounds, WordHero doesn’t look outdated so much as unfinished. It is the kind of formatting and graphics you’d expect to see on an incomplete website. To be fair, WordHero’s graphics are not unreadable or pixelated – just very simple. If you enjoy the gameplay, the graphics shouldn’t bother you overmuch.
WordHero Sound
There is no music while you play or on the menu screen. There are, however, sounds for every button tap, letter selection, correct word, wrong word, and the beginning of a game. All of them are relatively high-pitched, but not overly unpleasant.
One thing I must point out is that the sound of this game is not in any way attached to your phone’s media volume. I have yet to figure out how to adjust the volume of WordHero’s sounds at all. If you wish to play silently, you will have to go into WordHero’s settings and turn off all the sounds there. An easy enough process, but certainly not the quickest solution.
WordHero – The Final Score
WordHero can be forgiven for its simplistic graphics, oddly missing features, and strange sound system. From this point of view, it is WordHero’s lack of ads and gameplay that shine brightly. If you like a bit of challenge and don’t mind timed games, WordHero is a great way to teach yourself to think on your feet.
That said, if you would much rather take your time in word puzzles and not be under the pressure of a timer, it might be best to skip WordHero entirely. It is a very small community and with Google Plus shutting down soon, it will disappear unless the developers move it somewhere else.