Letterbox Word Game Online
http://letterbox.lexigame.com
Grade: B+

Date reviewed: 8/13/04

There is only one thing on this free site, but it is entertaining, challenging, and addictive - I just spent the last hour and a half playing it before I realized how much time has passed.

This is the Letterbox Game, developed by Alan Walker. You put letters in a 4x4 grid, one at a time, trying to make as many valid three- and four-letter words as possible reading left to right and top to bottom. Playing against you on its own grid is the computer, which has a suspicious knack of anticipating what letters are coming - although I may be overly paranoid from having just had my ass handed to me on a platter. Both the beauty of this site and the frustration of it is the fact that the game never ends; once a round is over, it's on to the next one, until you have defeated the computer soundly and there's no challenge left (yeah, right), or you decide you just can't take any more and hang your head in shame.

The site also offers a downloadable version and a mobile phone version, in case the regular program isn't enough torture. There are a couple of nice features: you can suggest words not already in the game's internal dictionary, and you can ask for a list of possible words given the letters you've already placed. The only thing I'd really like to see added would be an end to the game (for example, when you or the computer reach 500 points), and perhaps some sort of reward, like a winner's list - not that I'd ever be on it.