The insane world of Quarrel Deluxe

I came across Quarrel Deluxe when it appeared as one of the free-for-a-limited-time apps on another app, Apps Gone Free. I was bummed because the free offer had already expired by the time I saw it, so I had to buy it full price—$2.99, quite high for a game that was not from a popular developer like EA or Namco.

Barely two minutes into the game, I was patting myself on the back for buying the best game ever. Quarrel Deluxe is a word, strategy and battle game combined. One of the things you’ll notice upon loading the app is that the developers were not stingy with the graphics—the characters you’ll choose from are drawn in adorable detail (the Valkyries are too cute!) and the game’s interface is bright, colorful and appealing.

The gameplay is a bit intricate but once you finish the tutorial, you’ll get the hang of it quickly and you’ll be instantly hooked. The objective of the game is to conquer your opponents’ pieces of land. In order for you to seize your opponent’s land, you will have to go head-to-head in a battle of words.

Each of you will be given the same eight letters, with each letter corresponding to a point value. The one who can come up with the highest scoring word wins the land in question. If you came up with the same word or the same number of points, whoever created his word faster wins, so you have to be brainy and quick.

While each player is given the same number of letters, you are restricted by the number of occupants in your land, e.g. four occupants mean you can only create a four-letter word out of the eight letters on your rack, so you have to make sure each letter counts (please, someone call Webster to add “zxyu” to the dictionary).

The game is currently a one-player affair, your opponents are bots and you can choose bots depending on skill (Kali’s expert word IQ will make you instantly hate her).

Quarrel Deluxe is split into different categories. You can play in “story” mode, quick match where the computer will randomly assign players, or if you want an extreme challenge, you can create your own game using complicated land layouts coupled with the most skilled bots in the game.

Scrabble players will feel at home here. The game uses the Collins Scrabble dictionary, so if you’re a champion Scrabble player, pit your word bank against the bots of Quarrel Deluxe to see how you measure up.

Quarrel Deluxe is available at the App Store for $2.99.