One recent cold January night, I decided to forego all of the television shows, movies, magazines, and books that I have lying around waiting to entertain me, and spend hours upon hours playing a word game on my computer. I have seasons of hit TV shows just waiting to be watched on DVD, countless friends I could call to chat with, and a pile of celebrity gossip magazines (admittedly, a somewhat shameful weakness) at my disposal for entertainment purposes. However, my choice was not to rest my brain and give in to these vices, but to sit and form random letter tiles into words.

Okay, actually, I didn't really decide to do this. Earlier in the evening, I had decided to take a look at PlayFirst.com to see if they had any new games available that I could kill some time with. I stumbled across WordJong very randomly, thought it looked good enough to challenge me, and decided to check it out. When I finally looked at the clock again, it was three hours later, and I had been so engrossed in playing that the time had easily slipped away.

Have you ever played MahJong? I haven't. All I know is that it is a Chinese game played with tiles. WordJong, as the name suggests, is based around the style of MahJong. You are presented with stacks of letter tiles, which you must click on to form words. Once the letters are clicked, they are moved to the bottom of the screen, and the tiles underneath are uncovered and made usable. It's a fairly straightforward word game in this respect. If you're like me, your brain probably tends toward the easy three-letter words (I'm not ashamed to admit that!), and that's fine. However, if you are able to come up with five and six-letter words, you can earn "wild tiles", which permit you to fill in letters that you might not have in your quest to clear the board. You are also given the ability to switch the tiles that you are given, so if you really can't find any words among the tiles you have, you can change them and see what you can come up with using a new set.

I know, I know. You're thinking this sounds just like every other word game and you're not very excited about it. Normally, I wouldn't be either, but it was the little unique and thoughtful touches that really caught me and kept me playing. To begin with, the sound effects were fun. Moving the tiles made a satisfying little "plink" noise, and the Chinese-style music that played throughout was not only not annoying in the least, but also gave an air of authenticity to the game. The background was animated to look like a Chinese temple, and the tiles were clean and easy to read. Best of all, when I cleared each board, I received a Chinese fortune. Once I had three fortunes (love, luck, and happiness), the tiles disappeared, the temple doors opened, and I was able to find out that my fortune is "Love is living".

Okay, so I am not really sure what that means, and it was a small reward for so many hours of hard work. However, having done such a good job was a lot more satisfying than reading about more ridiculous antics of Paris Hilton or watching yet another episode of Sex and the City on DVD. Overall, I found WordJong to be one of the best word games available online. It is very well designed, and I appreciated the fact that I had so many letter tiles to play with. The fact that I played for so long is a testament to the high addictive factor. As an added benefit, there is no time limit, so you can play at your leisure, and if you minimize the game to attend to other work, it won't hurt the progress that you've made. I've never played MahJong, and I've never really cared to do so, but WordJong is a game I will more than likely return to again and again. You can find WordJong at PlayFirst's WordJong site, where you can play online for free, or download to play right on your computer. (Important Note: The game is only available for download for PC users, but Mac users like me can play the Java-based online version!)

Helpful Tip: Even after the letters are uncovered, some are not accessible until you've used an adjacent tile. To provide you with the most letter options, use as many tiles that are adjacent to "important" letters (like R, S, T, L, N, and E) as you can in order to make those available.