Word Scramble: Matching Letters

Word games have been a standard in America since the earliest days of home writing utensils. From crossword puzzles to jumbles, this is a classic form of entertainment that has not seemed to wane much since high technology and graphics took gaming to the next level. To this day, these games get as much, if not even more, exposure do to the plethora of platforms on which they can be posted. Word Scramble, a new free iPhone game from the developer of Mafia Wars, is exactly what you would expect from this type of software.

When you start Word Scramble you are asked if you would like to create a profile. This adds a nice touch to what would normally be such an anonymous experience. You can add a name, photo and your phone number. You essentially have three modes of gameplay in Word Scramble: play solo, play and pass to another friend, or play online. When you get into the actual game itself, it is really a joy to find such a useful and colorful interface for what is essentially a word search.

You have a block of different letters stacked on top of each other, each inside its own white ball. When you find a word going in any direction in this you press all those letters and then hit the green check mark on the top left side. If you are pressing and highlighting letters and then realize they do not create a word, you can hit the red X in the right hand corner to cancel. Overall, you go through this timed, trying to get the most you possibly can.

When playing solo in Word Scramble you are really playing past incarnations of yourself by trying to beat previous high scores. These are estimated by how many you were able to get in the given time frame. The Play and Pass mode is really just you playing and then passing it on, each person trying to beat the other’s score. This can also be fun, but it is not too interactive in the traditional multiplayer sense since this really just involves you waiting quite a while for your turn. The online play, called the Live Mode, is a little more complicated and requires you to try and find words competitively in real time. This can be really difficult at first, but rewarding after some practice.

Word Scramble is one of the better incarnations of this type of gameplay on the iPhone. Right now the Lite version is free and the only one that is available, so download it to your iPhone before you have to pay in the future. Six and a half out of ten stars.