Taking something from both puzzle and word games, Prolix is slick and fun.
I played Prolix a while back, and was impressed with it’s simple interface and clean gameplay. Months later, after a few updates, these simple aspects of Prolix are still intact, with an extra layer of polish on top.
Prolix is in essence, a cross between a match puzzle game and games like Boggle or Scrabble. Word tiles fall from above, and you must use them to create 3 or more letter words from left to right or top to bottom. It’s a very simple concept that Prolix puts forth quite gracefully. Controls are easy, allowing you to tap or slide your tile where you want it to go, then sliding down to drop it.
As you play, you gain bombs and the ability to shuffle tiles around. Bombs are dropped in place of tiles and will 
explode any tile they touch. Shuffle will move tiles around, generally creating at least one word for you out of existing tiles. There is also a “?” tile that drops, which will take on any letter that will make the highest scoring word with the tiles you drop it on. For instance, if I drop a “?” after “CO”, it may turn into a “T” for “COT”. But if I drag it between “CO” and “L”, it would change to an “A” to form “COAL”.
The normal mode starts out pretty slow and will take you a while to lose, especially with all the bomb tiles you gain as you progress. I was disappointed that I couldn’t choose the level I wanted to start out on, as someone wanting a faster challenge right off the bat won’t get one. Luckily, for those people the timed mode will satisfy. Much like Bejeweled, each level has a progress bar that starts out in the middle, and slowly goes down. The more words you make, the more the bar refills, until you go onto the next level.
One of the most impressive features of Prolix is it’s integrated online features, which allow you to instantly access online leaderboards, make friends, post on walls, etc. All of this without requiring to enter a bunch of information to register (all that is optional). It was a seamless experience to switch from the game to the online experience, which is more than most games out there that have tacked-on community systems.
Despite it’s smooth gameplay and interface, I felt that Prolix was lacking in content. It’s two game modes are solid, as well as the online support, but it won’t exactly keep you coming back for more. You can change your style of letter tiles in the options menu, but I felt something like this would have better used as unlockable content, much like Motion X Poker Dice did. A puzzle mode would have been welcome, where you drop missing letters to clear the game field. Maybe an option to change the size of the game field with room for more letters. Still, for a 99 cent game, Prolix is much better than most, and will impress with its clean, simple design.
Presentation & Graphics
Very clean and smooth presentation, in every aspect of the game.
Sound
Very simple sound. Would have liked to see some nice ambient background music. You can listen to iPod music if you like.
Gameplay
Excellent controls for maneuvering letter tiles. Simple, but helpful special abilities. I learned that there are more 3 letter words than I originally thought! Unfortunately, there is no option to choose the starting level of difficulty. Gameplay can get pretty repetitive, as nothing much changes other than the speed of falling tiles or the timed mode.
Gamelife
Extremely simple and well-integrated online community system with profiles, friends, scoreboards, etc. The game really needs more than two modes of play. A challenge mode would have been welcome. Excellent saving system for playing on the go.
Game Rating
It may not be taking any risks, or doing anything unexpected, but Prolix is an elegantly execute word/puzzle game. There could be more to it, like extra play modes, to keep you coming back, but for those that are looking for a simple pick-up-and-play word building title, Prolix is a steal at 99 cents.
