Bonnie's Bookstore is a new release from PopCap Games. Its goal is to create a world of fun for children whilst educating them at the same time. This game opens with a brief introduction to Bonnie and her desire to write children's books, based on the paintings her late grandfather created. The game itself is entirely downloadable from the internet, and can be played directly via the web as well. The look and feel is very elementary. It is like an online dynamic Scrabble game. There are 50 levels for each platform of difficulty - Normal, Hard and Genius. Players have the option to choose a standard, untimed game or the timed "action" mode.
Points earned by the player are doubled (Hard) and quadrupled (Genius), depending on the platform of diffculty chosen. Points are also affected by the length of the words created.
During game-play, various obstacles are thrown in that increase as you climb the levels ladder. Everything from Writer's Block, Wild Cards, Cycler Tiles, Copy Cat, Lock Tiles and Reversible Tiles show up on the playing board at random.
Players should beware making too many three-letter words as this will penalize them and bring out the writer's block tiles. Writer's block tiles prevent you from using the letters they hover over. You cannot go from chapter to chapter unless you use all of the letters on the game board.
There are many positive things about this game that will definitely help the younger crowd exercise those vocabulary muscles; however, I do believe the interactive story itself could have been a little more entertaining. More creativity might have worked well for the game board as well.
At some point - somewhere around level four, I became quite bored looking at the same thing over and over again. I can only imagine how someone my junior would become slightly bored as well... unless they just like looking at the same thing over and over again.
Finding words can be challenging at times - but it still needs... something more. Overall I think this is a great thing to have for any child between the ages of 8 and 10. Anyone younger or older will think it is either too hard or too boring respectfully. *Yawn*
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