It’s a phenomenon in the U.S, receives 1.6 million users per day and was even described by singer John Mayer as “the new Twitter”. Words With Friends managed to conquer the overcrowded iPhone puzzle market.
Like its iPhone competitors Scrabble and Word-Fu, Words With Friends is a word game where up to four players score points by forming words from randomly-selected, tiled letters. The secret to its success is simple however – connectivity. There is no single player function whatsoever in Words, meaning you’re going to have to either play with friends nearby or online – or if you’re particularly popular, you can even play or store up to twenty games simultaneously.
When you first boot up Words With Friends you’ll be asked to create your own account to store your details into the game. You can then invite friends to join you via synchronisation to your Twitter or Facebook account, or even through your iPhone address book – provided you have already stored your contact’s email details.
If you register a username like WordUp, sorry but we’re logging off immediately
We instead plumped for a random online battle against a fellow named The Eliminator, who quickly mopped the floor with us. During all games, with friends or otherwise, both players can talk smack or exchange tips in the app’s dedicated IM function, which hovers above the right-hand side of your live battle.
Meekly offering excuses, we told The Eliminator we had to take a break (to hone our skills and look up YouTube strategies), and would be back later on to finish the game. And just like that, Words With Friends stores your game from its current position and allows you to make your next move whenever you like, whether or not your opponent is online or not. If they aren’t online, they will instead receive a push notification to let them know that you’ve made your move. With upwards of twenty ongoing games stored in the app, it’s easy to see what drags users back into the experience, and how the average player’s time spent with Words is over an hour daily.
As for the actual gameplay, Words With Friends doesn’t try reinvent the wheel – it is simply a streamlined, connectivity-based Scrabble clone. If you’ve been trying to get to grips with the iPhone Scrabble version yourself though, or have a hankering for an iPhone word game to share with your friends, Words with Friends stands head and shoulders above its competitors and earns our lofty recommendation. Now, if you’ll excuse us a minute, JOE isn’t about to throw in the towel to The Eliminator just yet.
Words With Friends is available to download from the App Store for €2.39. A free, ad-supported version is also available.
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