It’s rare to have an iPhone or iPod touch App as our main feature; they’re usually too short to have a full review, and many semi-hardcore gamers don’t show much interest for casual games.

But this title deserves it. Ho Ho Ho Yellow Snow.
Santa has to piss on the snowmen.

But it’s not just any snowmen that Santa has to take care of; they’re zombie snowmen.

• Amazing new 3D Graphics.
• Accelerometer and touch controls created just for the iPhone.
• All new game modes; fight the snowman hordes in ‘Survivor’ or pee free in ‘Zen’.
• Three difficulty levels. Are you brave enough to try the punishing Expert level?
• Based on an award-winning flash game.
• Created by the wonderful minds at Matmi.

We always love creative ideas; especially when they involve zombies and Santa with an overly full bladder.

So, we received a game that’s probably not going to pique your interst just by the name — Scruzzleword. But if you find yourself asnwering “Yes!” to each one of the questions below, this title may be just for you.

Do you own an iPod touch or iPhone?
Do you like puzzle games that involve words, say crosswords or Scrabble?
Do you enjoy playing Sudoku?

If you answered “Yes!” to all of the above, then this is totally worth your $2.
As we hinted above, Scruzzleword is like a crossword with Sudoku. Let us show you what we mean.

These screenshots of Scruzzleword explain so much. In fact, if you read the rules from the “How to Play” section, congratulations, because you just mastered the rules of Scruzzleword. It’s that simple.

The gameplay mechanics is simple; you switch the blocks of letters around until you get your words right. You’ll start with four yellow blocks, and if you touch those blocks, it’ll reveal the appropriate clues for the words going across and down from that yellow block. So if you start the game, you’ll get hints from each of you four yellow blocks; a total of eight clues. Basically, if you don’t know any of the answers, then you probably won’t know what to do next right?

And that’s when this game gets interesting, or I should rather say, can be easily abused. You just grab any of the blocks, then scatter them on the screen until you get a couple of more (sometimes a lot) yellow blocks for more hints. Now if you’re serious about crosswords, you probably aren’t going to just randomize the blocks to get your way around it. But if you are just looking for ways to get around it, it’s just too tempting to randomize the blocks and break the ‘honor system’ that Scruzzleword present to you.

But not to worry hardcore crossword fans; the information above is only true for the “Beginner Mode”. There’s always the “Challenge Mode” that will give you the hardcore crossword satisfaction you crave.

The Challenge Mode isn’t completely ‘randomizing cheat’ -proof, but the rule changes a bit. Players can only get hints from yellow blocks that are NOT touching any other yellow block. So, not only does the game test your word solving skills, but your memory as well. I say this is a nice save by Ymedia Labs, because the core fun could have been compromised.

We saw few reports about the game being occasionally unstable on the iPhone, but when we tested the product, we had no problems whatsoever. And we’re sure that a patch will be available should any major problems arise.

We’re not saying that this game is for everyone though. The lack of depth in gameplay or storyline can be seen as a weakness, but with this type of game, you don’t really need them. As we clearly stated before, you have to love all three factors — Puzzles, Crosswords and Sudoku — to love this game. But if you do love ‘em, you’ll have no problems killing time with this one.

Our Score: 8.5 /10

It’s easy to enjoy this game if you love Puzzles, Crosswords and Sudoku.