The objective in Plight is to get the most points, and you acquire points through connecting letters into chains in order to form words. No straight lines required. The better the words you find, the more points you get, although the exact formula for determining their value isn't specified anywhere that I've found. The game is played in rounds, and each round gets faster and faster until the end.
You can play Plight by yourself, or you can recruit some friends to play with on either free-for-all or team mode.
Fun Factor
If you're a casual gamer at all, you might be able to appreciate the relaxation qualities of a game like this. However, I feel that the majority of its fun value must be achieved with multiple players, and I haven't been able to try this yet. It wouldn't have hurt the game any to throw in some additional elements, perhaps something along the lines of Scrabble's double-score or triple-score tiles, although I noticed they did this in Blobble which was released two years later.
Control and Gameplay
Unless you're chatting the only controller that you'll need is your mouse. You select words by clicking on a letter to start, and then moving the mouse along the line of letters that you want added, then clicking again when you're done. The end result is really quite seamless. Although with this mechanic you'd expect to be restricted to selecting letters in cardinal directions, I was surprised to find that you can also select letters diagonally and it isn't hard to do. You're not struggling to maneuver the mouse between orbs in order to select your next letter.
Graphics and Sound
Plight received a graphics overhaul about a year after its release, and the results are very nice. Its photoshopped tiles easily make it one of the more attractive games on BYOND. At the same time these tiles were released, we were also informed that there were more updates in the works which would include animations, sound and music among other things, but so far these updates have not been forthcoming. As it is, Plight is left without any sound or music, and has nothing but nice graphics to show off. At least it looks good in screenshots.
Replayability
This isn't the kind of game that you play through in order to hear the story or discover the secrets. There is no story nor any secrets. Its more of a party game, and as long as you have friends who are willing to play or you're perfectly happy to play by yourself over and over again in an effort to improve your personal best, the game won't get old.
Conclusion
In the end, you might compare Plight with a typical board game without a whole lot of complexity. It can be fun to play, especially if you have the right people to play with, but its not something that's going to keep you hooked for long periods of time. It would be nice if it included some subtle sound effects and a nice ambient soundtrack, but the lack of such things is easily forgiven in light of Plight's otherwise professional quality.