Phrase Master

The Good
Phrase Master was designed by Apogee founder Scott Miller, at a time when the company was just established. Titles made at that time was designed to run on any computer, regardless of microprocessor type and speed (But good luck trying to run it on any 64-bit Windows systems!). The game was included on the Puzzle Fun-Pak, which was distributed on one floppy disk, along with three other games made by independent developers.

If you have watched Wheel of Fortune, you should be familiar with the game. Basically, each game starts with a topic – given at the top of the screen - in which two players take turns guessing. Now, the game might as well be called Topic Master, since you deal with topics other than phrases, and these topics include TV Shows, movies, and animals. At least Topic Master doesn’t have the same ring to it. There are 500 topics stored in the game, so there is no repetition.

One player keeps guessing letters until they get it wrong, then control is handed to the next player. Every correct letter is added to their score, the value which they chose at the beginning of their turn. The similarities to WoF end there, however. There is no wheel, no “instant solve”, no prize at the end, and both players are only allowed to make five incorrect guesses. Whoever solves the phrase is awarded 10,000 points.

The game supports both monochrome and color graphics cards, but the graphics stand out if you do have a color card. If you choose to run the game in monochrome, there is still a hint of blue on the instructions screen; the rest of the game is in mono, with the blocks from the color version replaced by asterisks. Everything on the screen is laid out nicely; it is divided into four parts, with the main one reserved for the topic and scores. The section below that contain bigger versions of the protagonist from the Kroz series. Then it’s the letter counter, followed by the time that you have to guess a letter.

There are three sound effects in the game, but the ones that are worth noting are the one where you choose the value of your next letter. This effect just sounds like the wheel from WoF, but it doesn’t slow down. The timer indicator running out is accompanied by a sound effect going up in pitch, letting you know how much time you have without looking at the indicator itself.

The Bad
I found no major issues with the game, but if both players are unable to solve the topic by the time their guesses run out, the topic will not be revealed to both players. Other word games reveal the word when players lose out, but not this one.

The Bottom Line
This is a game which can be described as Wheel of Fortune without the wheel. Two players take turns in guessing the phrase at the top of the screen, while avoiding taking too many incorrect guesses. The points they earn after a correct guess depends on which value they choose. That's it. Although the number of topics stored means there is no repetition, the game could have let the user to code in their own topics (via an external program).

Like many early Apogee games back in the day, Phrase Master is designed to run on any computer, whether they have a monochrome or color graphics card. If you have one of these latter cards, everything just stands out. The sound effects are not bad either. If you love word games, definitely check this one out.