Really? It’s out now? Yes. Anyone that already knows about Quarrel has been looking forward to this news but for the unaware here’s a little background. I first played Quarrel at the Edinburgh Interactive Festival in 2008?? It was running on development hardware but seemed pretty much complete. It seemed like a good deal of fun. Since then I have bothered the developers at Denki fairly regularly every time I heard rumours of an XBLA release date. In short, Quarrel had a hard time coming into this world. The iOS version lacked multiplayer and we found it to be a disappointment. Quarrel is a game obviously designed to be played against other humans. It’s a game about getting one over on your opponent while laughing at their pathetic attempt to rend control of the board from you with a three letter word. Playing any word game against an AI opponent can be a soulless experience. You can feel the IQ slider moving up and down as they switch from missing obvious game winners to dropping surgically crafted word bombs in your lap. You can’t help think that they are playing dumb or ‘cheating’ to suit the game at hand; it’s patronising. Keep in mind that I’m not talking specifically about Quarrel here. I’ve never played any adversarial word game that got the single player right. If anything the strategic elements of Quarrel add a layer of gameplay that makes playing against the AI much more tolerable.
In Quarrel you battle your opponent for control of the board. The number of troops you have on a board segment equate to the length of word you can use in the defence of that segment or the attack of an adjacent segment. In a battle both sets of players are given the same set of eight letters from which to form words to their allotted length. If you have less troops than your opponent you’re at a disadvantage but the rewards for beating them will be higher. The strategic element of troop placement and movement is strongly reminiscent of Risk. Word forming brings memories of childhood games of Boggle and student daytimes watching Countdown to mind and the scoring is obviously taken from Scrabble. That might sound like I’m being very reductive but I’m not. You know what sucks about Risk? Losing on a shitty dice roll; there is no skill in that. Boggle? That word length matters more than quality. Scrabble? Not nearly enough fighting! Quarrel is a great combination of all these ideas; a game of risk and reward where the risk is weighted by your skill with words. The real beauty comes from understanding the simple rules to the point of forming a plan of attack. You know how long your opponent’s word can be and they have the same eight letters to choose from as you. It seems obvious but the realisation that you can score more points with a well formed shorter word and work out your opponent’s potential maximum score is quite profound and extremely satisfying.
Playing Quarrel with four friends in party chat brings back memories of the early days of multiplayer Xbox Live Arcade. For me games like Uno, Marble Blast Ultra and Texas Hold’um became a way to hang out with my friends and chat while playing a game. Although due to the the game’s aggressive turn timer it can be hard for the chat to get going. This really should have been optional in player matches, replaced by a simple ‘hurry up’ option that other players could use to force a timer on an absent or lax player. Another odd omission is the ability to choose your favourite tribe to represent you during play. Random assignment is fair enough in ranked matches but again this should have been an option in player and private matches. Quarrel’s simple and welcoming user interface make it a pleasure to play with friends, or at least other humans, but even a single AI player in a four player game can really take the edge off the fun. Quarrel is made to be played with friends, so make sure that’s how you play it.
"Zulus. Thousands of 'em" - Michael Caine never actually said that in the movie. True story.
Ummm... SLUFFS? Yeah... that sounds like a real word.
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