Review: Words With Friends
Watch the “Words With Friends” Review on App A Day TV
Proving the old adage what’s old is new, Words With Friends puts a mobile twist on the classic tile based word game Scrabble. It also plays just like the popular Facebook game Scrabulous. In short, it’s an addictive turn-based head to head scrabble game between you and another player.
You can swap usernames with a friend, add someone from your contacts, or search for a random opponent if you’re a loner. Once you accept the game request, you’ll see the word played by the game creator which will have to sit over the star space in the middle.
The board looks like a scrabble board complete with bonus squares including the Double/Triple Letter (DL/TL) and Double/Triple Word (DW/TL). You start out with 7 letter tiles and when you lay down your word, the game sends an update to the other player. If you enable it, the game uses push notifications to let you know when it’s your turn. You can have multiple games going at the same time, and since it’s turn-based you can play at your leisure.
There is also a chat feature for trash talking or telling players you know they’re cheating when they use the words Quate, Tor, or Ti. Yes, there are dozens of websites that will help you come up with a high scoring word simply by typing in your tiles with a few ?’s for wildcards. There is even an app for that.
The developers have a free ad supported version on the iPhone/iPod touch that will show you an ad for each turn, and the $1.99 version will get rid of the ads. As an iPad launch day customer, I made the dumb decision of buying the Words With Friends HD version for $4.99 (ugh) Not only could I have gotten the free version and double pixel’d it, I could have waited a few days and picked up the HD version for $1.99 which is what it’s selling for now in the app store.
Even at $4.99 Words With Friends is good deal when you consider the amount of time you’ll spend playing it. The only negative I really found with the iPad version is the inability to use the app in landscape mode. It also replaces the ad space with a “house ad” for joining their twitter/facebook pages. This can sometimes get accidentally tapped causing it take you out of the game. I should be able to get rid of that.
The developers at New Toy know a thing or two about making games, they used to work at Ensemble Studios the company that created the fantastic Age Of Empires PC games.
Words With Friends is APP A DAY APPROVED
Diane Says : Addictive and fun, it’s social, competitive, totally good brain exercise and a novel way to flirt.
Scot Says : I love connecting with friends in such an intimate yet remote gameplay experience. Now if I can just figure out how attack those Triple Word squares early, I may have a chance to be “King Of The Word!”
SELLER: New Toy
What do you think about Words With Friends? Leave your comments below.
