Bonza: Puzzle Induced Suffering

    Hey, everyone. Glad to see that y'all have survived yet another work week. I have been remiss, of late, in describing a game for the puzzlers who lurk among you. My wife, Carley, is battling with a popular game that has skyrocketed into the top 10 or so games in the ole app store. It is called Bonza and as one might expect from the above pictures, it is a word game.
     As I might have surmised, being a shooter gamer, myself, I am not crazy about this game. It is quite difficult, even for the puzzler contingent. This demographic, that represents the more stable, quieter, more studious and brainy members of our society, once they get their teeth into a puzzle, are like the proverbial iron-jawed mastiffs. So, Carley has played this game for several dozen hours, muttering to herself as the minutes tick by and occasionally asking me for help, which is amusing. She is like the High Priestess of puzzle games, so I was shocked, shocked I say, when she asked me for puzzle help.
     But this game is unapologetically difficult. As you can see, they throw some chunks of words on the ground and expect you to clean up their mess. I gave Carley my thoughts, that "Hey, why didn't they just leave the words together and save all the trouble? She was miffed a bit, but she forgave me when I did a search and found a web site with cheats for this game. The straw that broke the camel's back was where the category was Egypt. The worst word was Hieroglyphics and we would never have gotten it. Another tough puzzle was African Countries and another was underwear. I excel at talking about underwear, normally, and I even found 'Knickers' because I savvy the English undies.
    So, let me give a shout to a web site called GameCliche for a nice job on Bonza that gave us refuge from Hieroglyphics and their ilk. Please know that I am cutting up and the game is really quite  good and particularly enjoyable for puzzle folks. I think that packs of thirty of these mind-benders are 99 cents, which is less than a dollar.
     I guess you can tell from the picture that you use your finger to slide the chunks of words around on the screen until you achieve words that are intelligible. Let me say that my wife instructed me to give you some advice. As you earn coins, don't waste them on tips, because tips are 50 coins. If you take 100 coins, you can unlock a whole pack. What this means is that if you are stuck, you can just skip to the next puzzle. That is a huge difference; between playing and stewing in your frustration.

    I have been playing more of Modern Combat 5, with my faithful sidekick pictured above. I have been fighting drones in pitched battle today, as well as using a sniper rifle with infrared scope. I have been doing some other stuff, so I am still less than half-way through this terrific game.
     Hey, rejoice with me about Marvel Super Heroes Legos and the fact that I reached the 200 stars plateau. This unlocked another three missions, which is cool. There are only 260 stars to unlock everything, so I am happy about this. Also, I finally understand how to unleash my super ability thingie and some other hidden stuff. After enduring the Red Skull and his funky, booty shaking humiliation, it is a much deserved honor. On the left of your screen, note the pause symbol. Swipe it with your finger in order to bring it out, then read the instructions.
    I toyed with the idea of going to see the Marvel movie about the Raccoon (Guardians of the Galaxy), but couldn't really get up for it. The related game is on sale for $1.99 and I have yet to buy it either.
    I try to read some, occasionally, to break up the game playing. Last night I tried and deleted several novels, then reread a Zane Grey book called The Young Pitcher. It was written for teen boys but is a good read for anyone. You may find some of the descriptions of college life and athletics a bit naive, but you should remember this was published around 1911. There was not a single female character in the book, which was quite different. If you want to read it, you can get it for free on any of the e-book stores, I think.
     I hope that you have a great weekend, and I bid you a good night.
   I'm CE Wills.