£1.49 at time of writing
Out now on iTunes App Store, Google Play, Amazon Appstore

iOS version tested on iPad, copy supplied by publisher.

Edit: Sounds like a recent update has improved issues regarding letter distribution and Conundrums in an update. Good stuff.

Barnstorm! The idea that they’re working on another TV show up fills us with all sorts of excitement – their previous work (The Chase, Tipping Point, Perfection, Eggheads) all really good apps that capture their shows well that we’d absolutely recommend.

And now here’s Countdown, which is slightly different to usual in that there have been official Countdown apps in the past. They’ve all been strangely not much cop. With a caveat which I will come to once again I’m happy to suggest that if you like the show then you’ll like the game, the first one that lets you play the show’s format as you see it on television – against a range of four AI difficulties, against an opponent or on your own. You can also play a short five round game (two letters, two numbers, a conundrum) and practise any round you like.

It plays out as you’d expect, in a letters game you make as many words as you want and then select one to submit. Numbers game uses your numbers as a sort of calculator (a nice touch here is there are buttons for “six random numbers” and for “one from the top, five for anywhere else” when selecting your numbers if you can’t be bothered to jab at the screen) and feels like the most successful version of number solving in an app so far. The conundrum is buzzing in and tapping the tiles to spell out the word without making a mistake or taking too long.

Two player is pass and play except for the conundrum which is first on the buzzer. It’s a shame that there seems to be no way to play two player simultaneously pad and pencil using the screen as a board, if you’re playing a full fifteen round game in two player you’ll hear the clock 29 times total. Maybe also a system to choose your own Countdown make-up would be nice – pretend you’re back in the eighties with Richard and Carol in a nine-round game perhaps.

Other criticisms. The caveat I have is that I’m not quite sure if the letter distribution algorithm is quite right – if I pick a pretty standard  six consonants and three vowels Dictionary Corner rarely seems to come up with anything more than a six, occasionally a seven, rarely an eight. I don’t know if this is me being unlucky or if it’s not quite right (I seemed to get a lot of Vs). Also the conundrums don’t seem to be quite constructed in the usual Countdown style of smaller words which you make a nine-letter word from, or at least less obviously so. Some of the words are pretty obscure – of course rendzinas! This doesn’t stop the game from working but seeing as Barnstorm are normally so good in getting the feel of show correct this seems like a bit of a surprise.

Despite all this it’s difficult not to declare it’s the best official Countdown app released so far, and there’s a fair chance that issues will get updated out in due course.