Word Solitaire: Aurora

Price at time of writing 59p approx 99c

I like solitaire, as in the traditional card game, but I bore with it quite quickly.

Now solitaire with words is an addictive twist. And that's the aim here. On each level all you have to do is uncover all turned over cards and ensure that at the end you have a word in each column.

With limited lifelines (burn a few cards - on some levels even this is not available) you will be driven mad yet you will keep coming back for more. Longer words mean more points and your few spare cards in the bottom left hand corner will often be needed to complete words or simply to add to your score.

Campaign is fun with level after level available to proceed through with many challenges such as coping with many of  a given letter.

A global 'who can score the most?' daily challenge is also great fun.

This is so close to a 10/10 app but a couple of personal desires just hold it off.

The backgrounds are beautiful but the animation seems to make the battery drain a little too quickly for my liking for a word app.

Some form of Open Feint and/or Game Center functionality would be nice.

A global high score leaderboard would also be a good addition for Campaign mode. Especially when this has been implemented for the daily challenge.

These are minor quibbles though and such a small price for such an addictive card game with a word twist is outstanding.

9/10 Download from

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Whirly Word

Price at time of writing £1.19 (approx $2)

Whirly word is not the best word game ever, nor is it the most graphically impressive. It also has the most irritating repetitive music that will drive you nuts in due course (turn it off in options before you go mad).

So how the heck does it make the Best Apps grade?

Because it is my low battery lifesaver app. If I am dow to 20% battery and I am still hours away from a charge I resort to this because it is so undemanding by way of resources.

If you turn that music off the battery will last even longer.

Whirly Word is a simple find-the-words game. You have a circle of 6 letters and all you need to do is find all words that can be made from them. A simple target bar shows you how much progress you need to make on each level to go to the next one. It's called whirly word because you have a 'whirl' button to shuffle the letters if you wish (it may or may not help you).

To add to your low battery enjoyment each game will last a long time as you have as long as you like to perform each level. I prefer to make the game more of a challenge by trying to get all words on each level rather than progressing after immediately after the target score is hit.

There is one further minor irritation I have with this game and that is the fact you have to hit the centre-of-circle enter button after each word. So many word games these days allow you to double-click the final letter to make the entry that I would like this option.

Display colours can be changed in options and there is a good local high scores record.

But there is no on-line connectivety and as a result no global high scores.

So Whirly Word is not the best word game in the world but equally it isn't the worst either. It will certainly leave you with something of a brain testing challenge when your gadget's battery edges towards depletion and that's exactly why it remains installed on mine!

8/10 A battery lifesaver from

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