Ladies and gents, we have a new contender in the world of free-to-win games. It’s a site you’ve probably heard of before, but they only recently introduced games to their venue.
And that site would be… SwagBucks!
I had no clue until Charlynda mentioned it! ^_^ So today we’re going to take a look at one of their games: Word Chain Plus!
In this word puzzle game, you have four letters at all times. Click a letter (any one of them) and then change it to make a new word! For example, in the picture above I could have changed the T into an S to create, “says.” You can use the keyboard on the screen or the keyboard attached to your computer to change the letter.
But your job isn’t done, oh no! Then you pick another letter and change it to create another new word. Keep making new words, one letter at a time, for as long as you can! A chain of words might look something like this. (The changed letter is in bold.)
| sets seas seat meat meal |
And so on. Since this game is timed you have to be quick with your choice! You have 1500…. time increments (they’re definitely not seconds) which count down extremely fast. In the first level each time you make a word the timer fills back up to 1500, which is great! In later levels the timer doesn’t fill up quite as much for each word, so the pressure is REALLY on.
The timer also affects your score. Whatever time is left when you make a word, that’s how much the word is worth! So a word made with 1400 left on the clock is worth 1400 points.
But the fun doesn’t end there! Each letter in the word has a dot over it, and whenever you change a letter the dot turns green.
When you turn all four dots green, you activate a multiplier. Each successive time you turn the dots green you add another number to the multiplier. So far my best has been a 12x multiplier! Woohoooooo!!! ^_^
It’s hard to build a big multiplier because you can lose the whole thing very quickly. Here are the rules.
- If you select a letter that already has a green dot over it to become the new letter for the new word, that dot will stay green, but any other active green dots will turn back to white. You’ll keep whatever multiplier you’ve currently built up!
- If you try to make a word that doesn’t exist then the entire multiplier goes bye-bye. (Proper names and acronyms are not valid words!)
- This is the tricky one. You can use each word only once per game. If you try to use it twice, the multiplier disappears and you still have to think of a new word. Gah!!!! >_<
Multipliers are key to getting high scores, but they can be tough to build! Remember, if you get stuck, it’s better to lose your progress on increasing the multiplier than to make an invalid word and lose the entire thing. Shake it off and start again!
Oh, and the longer you keep a game running, the harder it’s going to get. Not just because the pool of available words get smaller, but because Word Chain Plus will start locking the previous letter that you changed.
The lock hops to the most recently changed letter, and it’s amazing how even that makes things so much more challenging!
But no matter what, know that practice really helps. My scores have dramatically improved since I first started playing!
My best score is now around 233k, but I didn’t feel like grabbing another screen shot. Sorry. *^_^*
How to Earn Swag Bucks
Currently you can play for free or enter tournaments. When you play for free, you have a chance of earning Swag Bucks after the game is over and you return to the game page. So far I’ve earned 2 Swag Bucks each time it happened.
For the tournaments you have several options, and all require you to pony up some Swag Bucks at the start.
If you get really good then you can score a LOT of Swag Bucks through the tournaments. Play for free until you get the hang of it, then start with the small tournaments and work up to the larger tourneys.
With tournaments your first score is your final score, and you can’t redo it! So train train train before you spend your Swag Bucks!
Final Rating
I like this type of game because it makes you think, but you’re also restricted within some pretty tight guidelines. (Aka, four freakin’ letters!) Sometimes when games have a ton of options I get overwhelmed and stressed out. But I can totally handle four letter words.
Oh! And yes, Word Chain Plus counts swear words as “real” words too. I spelled “fuck” and proceeded to giggle like a 5 year old. *^_^*
Final rating? 5 stars! The multiplier system added a great twist to what might have been a boringish game. Bravo!
What would you rate it? Do you already use SwagBucks?
Similar Games
If you like word games then you should try some of these!
- Boggle Bash at Pogo – Find words in a mix of letters, and be quick about it!
- Chicktionary at Club Bing – Those poor, poor chickens…
- Word Noodle at BugleGames – A slower-paced Boggle type game. (Single player too.) Great for practice!