Taking a look at the Xbox Live Arcade lately, you risk drowning under a sea of twin-stick shooters and hack-and-slash dungeon crawlers - which, while they certainly have an audience, we're not sure that the world really needs quite that many of them in such a short space of time. It's into this world of dark, dreary shooters that Quarrel bravely treads, baring bright colours, word-based brain teasers, and a big smiley face - all for a paltry 400 Microsoft Points (about £3.40).
To win you'll need to be quick off the mark AND make the longest word you can...
Originally an iPhone game, Quarrel is an unusual hybrid of the word-making of Scrabble and the territory-conquering of Risk - basically, you get a set of letters, and you have to make the highest scoring word you can (each letter has a point value, as in Scrabble), and the length of the word determines the number of troops you can leave in a territory on the world map. What happens next is a bit hazy, but it seems that you can battle the other players to take over their territories, by making the longer word in the fastest time. With each turn, you'll need to decide whether to attack, defend, retreat, shift your troops around or reinforce your armies, adding an element of strategy to the game on top of the word-constructing challenges. We're connoisseurs of Xbox Live Arcade word games here at Everybody Plays - and we think it looks awesome. But awesome enough to tear us away from Family Game Night's Boggle? Only time will tell.
There's also a single player mode, where you can Quarrel your way past nine computer-controlled opponents who each have their own play style and personality. For example, Rex is the methodical type and plays some quite impressive words but tends to take his time - a quick trigger finger or two should send him packing - whereas Caprice is the opposite, being much quicker off the mark, with a less strong vocabulary. Malik is a good all-round player, but tends to get a bit hell-bent on revenge, and Kali is some kind of Quarrel ninja who's the territory of expert players only - although, you can always start off against Dwayne the simpleton.
Apparently not much of an achievement...
Wednesday will mark the end of a long, and often not easy journey for Quarrel to the Xbox Live Arcade, putting a happy ending on a development that's had more than a few bumps in the road. In fact, the game's been in development for years, thanks to the reluctance of major publishers to "take a risk" on a word game, which, as their MD Colin Anderson summed up at one of the bleakest points in the game's development, was because they believed "nobody plays word games anymore". Obviously, they never asked us. Seemingly suffering due to exactly the things that make it stand out - being a brightly coloured word game in a land of twin-stick shooters, and flying in the face of Quarrel's outstanding reception with those who were lucky enough to play it during development, not a single publisher was willing to take the risk. As Microsoft don't allow developers to self publish their games on the Xbox Live Arcade, Quarrel was forced to wallow in obscurity for years - until British publisher UTV Ignition Games eventually stepped in and set the wheels in motion.
Quarrel is taking over the Xbox Live Arcade this Wednesday, the 25th of January, and is priced at an AMAZING (woop! 24 points to me!) 400 Microsoft Points, which works out at around £3.40. If you're a fan of word games, or you just fancy some more variety on the Xbox Live Arcade, why not do the entire games industry a favour, and make sure you pick it up! If you're still on the fence, why not check back in a few days, where we'll have a full review.
