What In The World? is the latest Windows Phone game from Game Troopers. It is a trivia game where you have to guess the identity of hundreds of logos, celebrities, characters and locations from minimalistic drawings.
Available for low-memory Windows Phones, the Xbox gaming title has a simple interface, colorful graphics and Cortana support. In the short time we've spent with What in the World? it comes across as a challenging title for your Windows Phone gaming library and has a nice addictive draw. However, there is a glitch in the system that significantly holds this gaming title back.
Your primary menu with What In The World? has options to view your achievements, view your solved puzzles and access the game's settings. There is also links to visit the Twitter and Facebook pages for Game Troopers and the obligatory jump into game play option.
Settings with What In The World? include options for your language selection, music/sound options, to view the gaming credits and a help page for Cortana. The Cortana integration includes a host of features that includes:
- Checking your gaming progress
- Check your achievements
- Open the in-game store
- Solve puzzles
There is a microphone button to launch Cortana on the gaming screen. Just say "Anna" to initiate the command. For example, to answer a card say, "Anna, solve Superman".
The game itself has seven chapters of puzzles, each with 55 puzzles each. That would be a total of 385 puzzles to solve if my math is correct. You can review the puzzles you have solved by tapping the card icon at the top of the main menu or gaming screen.
What In The World? begins game play with a tutorial that will walk you through solving a puzzle and the elements of the gaming screen.
Speaking of which, the gaming screen has a back button, puzzle card history and access to the gaming store scattered about the top of the screen. Your puzzle picture is at the top center with a share button and Cortana button sitting to the left of the image. Two hint buttons are at the right of the picture. One will reveal a letter in the solution and the other deletes a letter from the gaming screen.
To solve the puzzle, just tap the correct letters to fill-in the blanks. If you guess wrong, the puzzle will shake and you'll need to tap the letters to erase them and try again. There is a skip button at the bottom of the screen if you need to move on to the next puzzle. However, to advance to the next chapter you will need to solve at least half the puzzles of the current chapter.
The puzzles can be rather challenging, especially with some of the famous people images. Some are drawings of an actors in character (e.g. Cameron Diaz with her hair sticking up from "There's Something About Mary"), while others are more difficult to identify.
Overall Impression
What In The World? can be an addictive game but there are a few issues that really water this game down. For starters, it is a free ad-supported game that relies on full-screen ads that appear after about every fifth puzzle. Thankfully, you can opt out of the ads for a $.99 in-app purchase.
Next is a pop-up banner that invites you to share the game on Facebook or rate the game in the Store. I can understand a few of these pop-up messages appearing every so often but the frequency experienced with What In The World? can be a pain in the backside. You shouldn't be beaten over the head to join/link with Facebook or rate the title in the Store. What In The World? needs a choice to opt out of these invitations to allow gamers to concentrate on the game and not the repetitive pop-up messages.
Lastly, and most importantly, a glitch is present that will crash the game once you solve the 25th puzzle. The game will crash and upon re-start the tutorial loads and when you complete the tutorial, as the 26th puzzle loads the game crash again. We have been in touch with Game Troopers and they are diligently working on a fix for this bug with hopes of pushing it out later this week.
Even with the fatal glitch, What In The World? is worth the download to see how you like things. The Xbox title is a fun game to pass the time with some rather challenging picture puzzles to solve. Should the developers jump on this critical bug and stabilize things, it is a solid gaming title to have in your Windows Phone gaming library.
Download What In The World? for Windows Phone (Free)
