Moxie, a bitter soda from Maine, has come to mean “guts” or “nerve. It probably has something to do with the intestinal fortitude of those who drink this belly-washer.

Moxie, the app from Blue Ox, also requires a strong stomach because you have to be willing to gamble to form words to score big points without using up all the letters in your hand.

Moxie is a bit hard to describe, but if you take a look at the screen capture on the left, you should get a pretty good idea of the challenge. Form three rows of words using letters the app randomly selects for you.

I like the fact that Moxie is not a word game that requires your playing against the clock. That makes the game a bit more cerebral and allows for an element of strategy that speed-oriented games do not allow. Consequently, you’ll find Moxie more engaging than some others and you’re also like to quickly become thoughtfully addicted.

You score points for forming words (obviously). The value of each letter determines the overall score, a methodology common to so many word games, notably Scrabble (check out AppCraver’s review).

Again, like Scrabble and many other word games, in Moxie you can earn additional points by adding tiles to existing words or by substituting one for another.

Blue Ox and five other indie iPhone word game devs are jointly marketing Wonderful Word Games Week, which runs  through May 31. During the promotion, all their word games will be $0.99 apiece.

In addition to Blue Ox, Cerebral Gardens (Wordology), Imangi Studios (Imangi, Imangi Word Squares), Nimblebit (Textropolis), Semi Secret Software (Wurdle)  and Syed Jafri (Stitch’Em Words).

Check out AppCraver for reviews of Imangi Word Squares, Textropolis, Wurdle and Stitch’Em Words.

Moxie: Drink it while it’s only a buck for a can.

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category: Editor's Picks, Games, Word