Social Game Reviews

We covered Scrabble for Facebook in a previous review and recently a Scrabble alternative has shown its face on iPhone and iPad. The game is called Words with Friends and its a slightly different take on Scrabble. How does this game fare in a Scrabble dominated world?

More Scrabble?

Familiarity with Scrabble will make Words with Friends easily accessible to new players. The only real different between the two is that Words with Friends has shifted the placement of bonus tiles on the board. The bonus tiles are arranged in a diamond formation (with Scrabble having a square formation). Apart from that, this is a very Scrabble experience.

The Good

The real fun comes with the social aspects of the game. You can easily challenge your friends by selecting them for your address book or finding them by their username. Within a game, you can chat with your friends during a game so you can easily thrash talk during the game ! Who doesn’t trash talk during board games anyway. You can also play random players which is a great feature if you can’t find a friend to play with.

The Bad

As games go, this is a great (cheaper) Scrabble experience. Sadly, it’s not perfect. Though the game plays well, its the features around it that fall short. In random play, you are served up an opponent but there seems to be no player skill matching. It’s harsh when you find a player that lies outside of your playing skill. Games are then either too tough or too easy. Being able to find similar players in your skill level would be a nice addition to the game. Hand in hand with this, Words with Friends does not store any statistics about your game history. How many games have you won? Which opponent have you played the most? There are a ton of metrics that can be stored for hard-core players (that can be hidden from casual players who don’t care). Storing these metrics would also help in build a skill level profile for players. To me, it’s a feature that is missed.

The game doesn’t have an in-game friends list. I would love to easily select a friend (not from my iPhone’s address book) from an in-game list. It seems cumbersome to have to look them each time I want to play. This also would help in being able to keep up with random players who you enjoy playing with. I don’t care to have them in my phone’s address book, so let me store them in an in-game friend’s list. The only real way to do this now is to look them up in a game history of the last 20 games and chose a rematch. This is an annoying work around.

Last but not least, you can only play a 2 player game. It would be nice to be able to play a 3 or 4 player game against friends. It’s not a deal breaker but it would be a nice option to have.

One other hindrance lies in the fact that you can’t rearrange your tiles if it’s not your turn. Given that this makes up a significant portion of your time when you play on any actual board, I did miss this while playing Words with Friends.

Last Word

All in all if you already own Scrabble on iPad or iPhone, Words with Friends is competitively priced (USD $2.99) and is definitely worth a look.

UPDATE: See what Penny Arcade has to say about Words with Friends.

Related Links
Words with Friends Free for iPhone (Warning: iTunes Link)
Words with Friends for iPhone (Warning: iTunes Link)
Words with Friends HD for iPad (Warning: iTunes Link)