PC Game Review Lex Venture: A Crossword Caper

“Science fair.” Those two words conjure up different memories for most of us. I did one project in 11th grade as a requirement for Biology II. What do I know? The Audubon Society awarded my deforestation project an honorable mention. Nowadays, the projects kids do just blow us judges away. They make projects from my high school years look like pre-school projects.

Where am I going with this? Crosswords meet science fair and Peanuts look-alike characters in Lex Venture: A Crossword Caper! I’m not shouting — it’s the game title. Although the game deserves a shout of excitement as it falls neither in the hidden game nor time management game genre. So what makes this crossword game different? Strong story, loveable graphics and characters, original power ups, and a Hangman slash Wheel of Fortune style mini-game.

Friends work together to create a word machine for the science fair project. Somehow a thief breaks their project and runs away with the their machine and its parts. The kids chase the thief who drops parts around town passing playgrounds, parks, the beach. The gang creates words to collect all of the the parts in every stage.

In each stage, the kids engage in a battle of wits against the the thief and enemies. The kids take turns with the first one playing for 10 stages, the second for eight, and so on. Every kid has a specialty to give him super powers in fighting the enemy — without fists, of course. Enemies try to stop the gang such as the dog that picks up and moves parts, a duck that eats things, a bully who can break letters.

Create words with at least three letters from the nine letters shown on top of the Scrabble-like grid. Parts rest on different squares of the grid and enemies try to block your way. When you enter a word, a bubble appears with its definition.

Power ups and combos help create words when you’re stuck, jump to a further away square, get a joker, electrify tiles. Even with all of this support, don’t think this makes for an easy game. Besides, it makes a great game for families to play together even with pre-schoolers.

Two mini-games change the pace that fit with the story. Upon spotting the thief, the kids a game where they race to pick up more parts than the thief to win the stage. Before trading kids, the currently on-call kid plays “The Challenge,” a Hangman type of mini-game. The winner gets a page of the machine plans. Just like Hangman, a blank word with a couple of letters filled in appears along with the word’s definition for a clue. Normal game mode uses harder words and clues, but other than that — there’s little difference between Easy and Normal modes.

Lex Venture: A Crossword Caper! comes with 42 stages in adventure mode. Quick game mode comes with five games where you can play with three of the five kids. These last longer since they contend with more parts and challenges. I’d like to see a game mode without the adventure that lets you pick which kid you want to play. Supposedly, more levels are available on the Internet, but nothing shows up on the referenced Web site.

The game begins with a tutorial and that’s it. It needs help instructions along with details of the kids’ names and background. Nonetheless, we get to know the kids and their personalities whenever we play them in the game. Despite the little foibles, Lex Venture: A Crossword Caper! with its good music and charm will entertain families and puzzle fans.