Exercising those mental muscles with Letterfall

There was a time when I was actually quite mentally agile. It may seem hard to believe that, especially if you’ve ever seen me at the school gate desperately trying to remember what it is I’ve forgotten to bring that morning, but back when I was commuting every day I used to be able to solve the most difficult sudoko AND the easy crossword by the time my 30 minute train journey was over. I even went as far as getting the application form for one year’s national sudoko championships!

Children and a lack of sleep means that my head is in much more of a fog these days, but the brain is a muscle and like all the others in your body it needs exercising it you want it to perform at the best of its ability. I am therefore always on the look out for little games and puzzles I can do to give it a daily workout and that’s why I was delighted when I heard about Letterfall, the new addictive word game from Scottish Friendly.

The aim of the game is simple, you need to make words up from the letters that fall from the sky (hence the name Letterfall) and by doing so you score points. You need to not let the letters stack up so much that they fill the screen, as that means game over. There are a few extra additions of special tiles (more on those later) but it’s incredibly simple to play and works either on a laptop or PC, or in a browser window on a phone or tablet. If you submit your scores there’s also a monthly £25 prize for the person with the highest score.

So, what is it that makes Letterfall so addictive? Well, if I knew the answer to that I’d be off trying to replicate it and make my fortune. When I was sent the link to the game I popped over immediately to have a go. Thirty minutes later I was still glued to my laptop!

All words that you form need to have at least three letters in them and it looks like you can’t have proper nouns and the like. There are a few other words that also don’t seem to be in their words list but it’s not enough to stop the enjoyment of the game. Simply tap the tiles (either with a finger on a touchscreen device or using your mouse cursor) that you want to make up a word and when you’re done tap one of the letters you’ve used again to submit the word. There are also buttons to unselect tiles if you’ve selected them in error or just changed your mind.

As I mentioned before, there are a few extra features in the game that are worth noting. Some tiles are yellow in colour when they fall, and once you’ve used these tiles in a word they change into bomb tiles which then allow you to clear away other tiles around them.

Any tile with a black dot in the bottom right hand corner is a multiple use tile which means you can use it twice before it disappears.

Later in the game Blocker tiles start falling and these can’t be used in forming words, so you need to destroy them with your bomb tiles before they fill up your whole screen.

Finally there are also Timer Tiles, where a coloured bar across the bottom of the tile tells you how long you’ve got to use it. Manage to do so within the time and you receive a helpful bonus. Fail and you get a forfeit instead!

Letterfall really is completely addictive, but I’m trying to think of it as a worthwhile thing to play as it helps me have a mental workout whilst having a bit of downtime from work or the kids. Try it yourself here (but Mum if you’re reading go and make yourself a coffee first, grab the phone handset too, you’ll be there a while!) and let me know what your top score is. Your challenge is to beat my 1197. Let me know how you get on in the comments below.

Disclaimer: I have received compensation from Scottish Friendly for the post. Regardless of that Letterfall is completely addictive though!