Word puzzles are among the most successful games to make the leap from
cardboard and wooden pieces atop the family dining table into apps on
the glossy screens of tablets and smartphones. So popular is the Words
With Friends app, for example, that an episode of “The Big Bang Theory” revolved around playing the game.
But it’s not just Words With Friends; hundreds of word game apps are
available. Some are more traditional and some are possible only because
of high-tech Internet trickery.
Of all the word games I’ve played on my phones and tablets, the one that
I’ve been most instantly amused by is the app Letterpress, from the
developer Atebits, available only for Apple devices. It’s a turn-by-turn, two-player game that is played over the Internet, something like a cross between Scrabble and the traditional Chinese board game Go.
You are presented with a five-by-five grid of letters, and when it’s
your turn, you tap the letters to make a word. Each of your chosen
letters earns a point, and the letters are then shaded in your color.
The same happens when your opponent plays. But there’s a twist; you can
“defend” letters by boxing them in with your colored tiles, so your
opponent cannot use them to create his or her next word.
It’s easy to learn and swift to play. But you will quickly find yourself
cursing that you didn’t spot the long word your opponent plays next,
and you will try to think up obscure words just to protect letters. It’s
entertaining, and the clean and simple graphics do not distract from
the play.
To tax your word powers even more, you can have several games running at
once. If you try this, you will probably find an hour goes by without
your even noticing. This may be one of the few downsides, apart from the
fact that it relies on having enough people playing for you to find
opponents to play against quickly. Though Letterpress is free, an
upgrade to play more than two games at once costs $2.
If a more traditional word game appeals to you, look no further than
Boggle. In its old-fashioned form, Boggle was a tabletop game for groups
of players, but on the smartphone it works as a play-and-pass game, and
also as a solo game against the clock.
In the game 16 cubes are marked with a letter on each face, and are
juggled into the slots on a four-by-four grid. A cute animation mimics
the way the real-life cubes move. Then, against the clock, you have to
find as many words of three or more letters as possible, zigzagging from
one cube to the next. In the physical game you would write the words
down, but in the app you tap on each letter in turn and double-tap on
the last one to complete the word.
The app keeps track of time and your chosen words, so you may even
prefer it to the tabletop game. But it also confirms if words are valid,
and at the end of the game you may find it depressing that though you
successfully spotted, say, 27 words, more than 150 could have been
found. It’s free in ad-supported versions for Android and iOS; an iOS version without ads costs $1 on iTunes.
A totally different game — a bit like a word search crossed with Tetris —
is SpellTower. At its core this game is simply about spotting words
among a grid of random letters on the screen; when you select a word, by
tapping or dragging, the letters disappear and the ones above drop
down. Bonus tricks, like destroying surrounding letters when you find a
word of five letters or more, add to the strategic aspect of playing
this game. It has attractive graphics and just enough addictive gameplay
to keep you coming back for more. It’s $2 for iOS and Android.
Dropwords is a similar free Android app. Puzzlejuice, $2 for iOS,
is also similar to SpellTower but is more Tetris-like as puzzle pieces
drop down the screen over time. But the fussy graphics in both
Puzzlejuice and Dropwords may distract you. They are played against the
clock, too, so don’t expect to relax while playing them.
For those rare people who have never played Words With Friends, it’s worth trying out, and it’s free for iOS and Android.
Think of a game a bit like Scrabble, in which you score points by
laying words on a grid, then add in online real-time play with people
around the world.
If your conscience pinches you about wasting time, you can salve it with
the thought that you are enriching and extending your vocabulary.
Quick Call
Skype has updated its free Windows Phone 8 app
with the video messaging feature that has been available on iOS and
Android editions for a while. Now you can record a short video message
for a contact who is not available in real time on Skype.
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