WORDPLAY Review

On the surface, WORDPLAY looks like a Scrabble clone, but there’s a little more to it than that. It’s more Scrabble meets Tetris. The board is the Scrabble board with double word and triple letter score blocks, and you make words horizontally and vertically with letter tiles. However, some subtle differences totally change the gameplay.

No matter where you place your word, all the tiles fall to the bottom of the board. When you make a word by adding letters to an existing word, the letters will still fall through any open space on the board until they land. Sounds more confusing than it is. Well, it did take me a half day to get used to it, but then you see the vision.

You can get credit for multiple words as the letters make their way down the board. So you can be strategic about what words could form as the letters fall, though honestly I think my limit is playing words on the board. If I get extra words on the way down, gravy.

If there’s space up top, you can get your double and triple scores. The letters will fall to the bottom but it will count the points by the squares on which you initially place your letters.

This is a great “on the go” game. It’s a two player experience and each player takes a turn, so you could play your turn and then wait indefinitely for your opponent. Your opponent may take hours to get back to his or her game, or they could play right away. The game has notification settings to let you know when it's your turn. It’s perfect if you’re standing in line somewhere. Take a quick look at your open games and if you have a minute, make your move.

There’s no time limit which I like. When I play word games I like taking the time to analyze all the possibilities. If you put a time limit on it, it actually takes some of the fun out of it. Sure, dealing with the pressure is a skill, but having unlimited time to look at the board is a nice component of the game.

Just like when you’re trying to type on the touch keyboard, your fingers will often drag the wrong letters or leave them on the wrong tiles. Luckily, there’s no autocorrect messing with your intentional words so you can just drag them around to the right place.

The game often credits you, or your opponents, with unintentional words. Usually three letter combinations that must have some obscure dictionary definition but really don’t make any sense. (Sorry Apple lovers, it doesn’t count iPad as a word.)

For a twist on classic word games, WORDPLAY (all caps, not to be confused with other WordPlay games) is easy to recommend for the price. It can be clunky, but easy to work through. The Enya-esque music isn’t doing anyone any favors, but since it’s a board game you don’t really need the sound on anyway.

App Store Link: WORDPLAY for iPhone | By Springy, LLC | Price: $1.99 | Version: 1.0 | 17.3 MB | Rating 4+