Fun

Have you played Every Word on your Kindle yet? It's a great little word game now available with Amazon's recent 2.5 software update for the Kindle 2. Every Word gives you a handful of letters and you have to form as many words as you can from them. You can play the game in relaxed mode, which means you can take as much time as you need before giving up, or in timed mode, which gives you a strict three minutes to construct your words. In either case, your success level at finding words determines if you can advance to the higher levels, where you'll be required to produce longer words from the random letters given to you at the start of each game.

Like the best games, Every Word is simple to learn but addictive. I like to play in timed mode... there's more drama, and otherwise I'd be staring at the board all day. Oh, Every Word is currently free on the Kindle, though I don't think it's available at all on the first-generation Kindle. The game is offered right there on the Kindle Storefront (along with another free game, Shuffled Row, which I haven't tried yet), so it's easy to find if you want to give it a whirl.

While the Kindle wisely isn't trying to compete with the iPad on the versatility front (preferring to concentrate on performing a small handful of e-reader functions really well), it's nice that it isn't totally unreceptive to throwing in a few new value-added functions every now and then. Diverting little games like Every Word are a great little addition to the Kindle, for those times when you want a engaging time killer but conditions aren't quite right for reading a book.

The accompanying photo shows the simple yet elegant graphics for Every Word. Give the game a try and let me know what you think.