Over the past five years, mobile games development in the U.K. has become one of the most valuable industries in our economy, inevitably attracting young professionals down this exciting career path. However, a decidedly middle-aged games studio is showing that age doesn’t matter by releasing a brand new word game.
Called ‘Two Words’, the game involves two players creating words from their rack of seven letter tiles. There are only Two Words on the screen at any one time as players take turns to play. Working from their London-based office in Somerset House, the Two Way Media team (with an average age of 48) wanted to simplify the classic 2-player word game to make it faster and easier to play – still a challenge but straightforward to pick up and play in a few minutes.
Turning the traditional view of the ‘gamer’ on its head, Two Words is aimed at players of all ages, and during its test phase has already attracted a dedicated group of game players who are more likely to complete a crossword than fire up an Xbox.
Playing on smartphones, players take turns to make words from 7 letter tiles each. Only their previous word is left on the board between turns – there are only ever Two Words on the board at the same time. Scoring is based on letter values and the length of the word made, so players are rewarded for making longer words. Words must touch or cross over the opponent’s word – players can also change letters of their opponent’s word to make new ones.
The game has been produced in partnership with Channel4’s All 4 Games team. James Turner, Head of Two Way Media, commented, “We designed Two Words to be an antidote to the complex boards that build up in classic 2-player word games. With Two Words you get the fun of playing turns with your friends with the simplicity of just making nice long words. This is our first mobile release, and we can’t wait to get the game into players’ hands.”
Colin Macdonald, Head of All 4 Games, added, “Two Words is a fun and engaging game that simplifies traditional word games for quick play between opponents. With its previous success on the Virgin Media cable TV system, it’s been a rewarding experience to see it transform into the gaming app for iOS and Android.”
Two Words is free to download on the Google Play and App stores.