10 Best iOS Word Games

Hooked on Words is an interesting word search game. You can connect letters horizontally, vertically or diagonally to make words. The twist is that there is a finite game board and it's actually possible to clear the whole thing, if you're Hooked on Words, that is.

New York Times Crosswords lets you play the daily New York Times crossword puzzles without the paper and messy ink. Tapping the squares and using the keypad is a really streamlined way to fill in the spaces. You can play the daily puzzle for free or subscribe for more. (By the way, the picture at right was as far as I could get.)

Word Warp gives you part of the answer up front, and that only makes it more difficult, which is why it deserves a spot in our 10 best word games list. With the group of letters you're given, Word Warp tells you how many words you can form. It's like it's daring you to think of all the words. At least they tell you what the words were once the game ends so you'll know how dumb you are if you missed some.

Word Solitaire is what it sounds like: solitaire, with words instead of playing cards. Like the rules of solitaire, you can only move a letter off a pile if it starts to form a word. You can only clear the stage by forming words with all the letters. Don't ask me how this changes the odds of solitaire, but it's an addictive little twist.

I didn't know there was a Letris 1, but this game is awesome which is why it's on our 10 best word games list. Letters fall like Tetris tiles, and you make as many words as you can out of the pile. The letters don't even have to touch, but each word you make eliminates the tiles. Letris may seem slow at first, but once the tiles start rising you'll be frantic to make more words before they reach the top.

George and I have been having fun playing WORDPLAY since I reviewed it. [Fred has been kicking my butt at it. —Ed.] WORDPLAY is a twist on Scrabble with a traditional crossword board, only when you make words horizontally, the letters fall, making more words along the way. It could use more support as it's a hard to find a game with another friend, so join us in playing WORDPLAY. (And someone let George win a game, he thinks I'm cheating.)

Scrabble is the original social word game, and EA made a very solid Scrabble port for mobile devices. It adheres strictly to Scrabble rules. You've got to connect every word to the existing board. It's a little slower than some of its counterparts, but you can take Scrabble everywhere you go.

You thought Letris was exciting? Word Tumble is a timed word search game, and every word you find gets eliminated from the board to make room for new letters. Words also restore your time, and longer words give you more time. Word Tumble becomes a real nail biter as time runs out. Smarts pay off in this game, but you've got to be quick about it.

I've always been partial to Boggle-style word games, so having one on my portable phone is great. Zynga really did it right with Scramble with Friends, a game I find more entertaining than Boggle. You can keep multiple games going and use powerups to suggest difficult words or freeze time, but the main goal is to just keep looking for new words.

There's a reason people can't stop playing Words with Friends -- it's an even more addictive word puzzle game than Scrabble itself. It sticks to the old school rules but it's smooth and fast. Even the free version lets you move on rather quickly. Words With Friends is an addicting social word game and deserves the top spot in our 10 best word games list.