When's the last time you picked up a dictionary? There are a lot of interesting things in there, but I'll admit that sitting around reading it isn't exactly a barrel of monkeys. That's one reason I have always been a fan of word games. It disguises learning new words in the form of an addictive and rather enjoyable puzzle. So when a friend introduced me to Bookworm Deluxe, I was fairly certain that I would enjoy playing it. With a recipe that incorporates aspects of Boggle, Scrabble, and Collapse, Bookworm Deluxe makes for a pretty entertaining game.

Players work their way through different levels as they accumulate points. A word is formed by linking letters together and submitting them to the bookworm, who then eats the word and awards the points for it. The longer a word, obviously, the more points awarded. There are also 'special words' that are worth mega-points if formed. A level up is given when a point goal is achieved and is accompanied by a promotion. In the beginning of the game, a player is considered an encyclopedia salesman, then a bookkeeper, assistant librarian, librarian, etc. This goes on, and as the levels increase, the titles start to become slightly humorous. My favorite one thus far is Thesaurus Rex. (Okay, so some are kind of corny, but they're fun.)

During the game, different tiles will appear. There are four different types of tiles to keep an eye out for. The basic tiles are used simply to form words and there's nothing downright special about them. The green tiles randomly appear and double the score of the word it is used in. Sometimes, when a long word is made, special gold tiles will appear. They're pretty much an award given by the bookworm for a word that he likes. These gold tiles quadruple the score of the word it is used in, which can be extremely handy to gain enough points to level up. The tiles to be especially cautious of are the burning tiles that can form when a player creates too many three-letter words. If any of these tiles hit the bottom of the screen, the entire library goes up in flames and the game is over.

The downfall to the game is that it does get very old after awhile. The difficulty level never increases and there's no real incentive to keep going besides the fun little 'Level Up!' that the bookworm says when the player gets the designated amount of points. Even that can only go on for so long, though. I got to level 38 until I realized that I didn't really care what my title was. One good remedy for this is the Action level that is available. In this level, the rules are the same, but instead of being turn-based, random tiles will constantly change into burning tiles as time goes on. This creates a faster-paced and much more challenging game. The Action level is a nice addition to the ordinary game, but it still doesn't fix the monotony that the Classic level faces.

There are cute little touches that do make Bookworm Deluxe have a unique flair from other word games out there. When the bookworm eats the words, for example, it's sort of cute. Also, it provides the definition for some words, which doesn't seem very fun, but you could actually learn something. For example, I had no idea that qua is a real word. The lovely little bookworm, however, informed me that it means "in the capacity of; a character of." Who knew?

Overall, Bookworm Deluxe is a good game to play for part-time enjoyment. The game can be saved and gone back to, but I don't recommend sitting there for hours like I tried to do because it changes from being fun to being rather tedious. It can be found at www.PopCap.com for $19.95.

Helpful Hint: Though it may be useful sometimes to click on the bookworm to scramble the letters in some cases, this causes burning tiles to appear more often, so be cautious.