For what seems like an eternity, Scrabble has been the standard for word-based board games, but there's a new kid in town who has gained quite a reputation. Words With Friends has become extremely popular since its initial release, and while it doesn't change the Scrabble formula, it does bring some minor variations.
Words With Friends is Scrabble, make no mistake about it. There are visual differences, and the game board changes the placement of the bonus tiles. While Scrabble lets you play online using Facebook, Words With Friends is entirely about playing online. You must set up an account first and give up an e-mail address. Once your account is active, you can invite friends to play from Twitter, Facebook, or your contact list.
If you don't have any friends, you can play with a random stranger and lay down creepy words like "stalker". During games, you can use the in-game chat client to taunt your buddies after you place a huge word like "quijibo".
The hardscrabble life.
Sadly, Words With Friends doesn't allow you to play against an AI opponent. This isn't a huge issue because playing with friends is much more fun, but it does require a constant internet connection. If you're waging word war on multiple fronts, you can allow Words With Friends to send you push notifications when your friends (or enemies) make their moves.
There are some technical issue that plague the game, however. Sometimes games can disappear for a short period of time, only to reappear without your recent moves. The chat client will sometimes mark old messages as new. The technical issues have been few and far between since the latest updates, which has made the experience much more stable.
Words With Friends is a bare-bones Scrabble clone with legs. We still hope to see some new features down the line, and some fixes for the infrequent technical issues. But if you're a word game master, Words With Friends is definitely worth picking up.
7 Comments
Also, the pass-the-iPhone version is useless, and they inexplicably refuse to spend two minutes fixing it so that you can't see the other player's letters when you change over.
"Unlike Scrabble, Words With Friends allows you to play with friends online. "
The iPhone and iPad versions of Scrabble do let you play with friends online though, via the Scrabble Facebook app, meaning you can also play the same games via a desktop browser.
Scrabble is a far better app, I've been playing online games with it for more than a year now. Words with Friends seems to be winning on popularity mainly due to the free ad-supported version, and perhaps making it much clearer that it has online support. I play both now, but if I had my choice I'd make all my friends buy the Scrabble app instead.
You make great points, we've updated the review to mention Scrabble Facebook connectivity.
The Scrabble app dictionary is a sanitised version though. No naughty words allowed, and at least on the iPad version, wont allow words not in its dictionary at all in multiplayer (Scrabble players will of course know that words are only not allowed if challenged by another player.) So in my Scrabble playing eyes WOF wins, simply because its dictionary is not purged of offensive words.
This is one of the best games i have on my iphone this is incredible i also recomend chess with friends
You would also love Word Score ....
I love this game. I am word game fan and this is awesome game.
I also liked the new game 'Word Score'. That's very addictive and you can play alone. Basically, you play against time.
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