7 Great Word Games For iPhone (or iPod touch)!

Posted on November 9th, 2009. Written by Kevin.

The App Store is filled with a bunch of word games, but in this post, I’ll talk about seven of my favorite word games for the iPhone.

Word Spin

Word Spin is based on an actual game by Geospace Products Co., Inc. In Word Spin, you start with three dials containing ten letters each. You start off by spinning them and rearranging them to try to get the best layout. When you’re done with that, you move on to the scoring phase where you must find words (horizontally) on the dials. Different letters are worth different amounts of points, a la Scrabble, and incorrect words count against you. After your scoring round is done, a fourth dial is added and you repeat the process all over again. In all, there are six rounds, the final round using eight dials.

Not only is Word Spin fun, but the interface looks great too. It’s nice and simple and doesn’t distract you from the game.

WordFu

You’ve probably heard of WordFu before, but in case you haven’t, WordFu is a mixture between a word and dice game. The concept is almost the same as Word Spin, but the way it’s presented and the extra little features makes it something entirely different. You start by shaking your iPhone to shake a bunch of dice with letters on them. You can then flick individual dice to get just the letters you want. When time runs out, you have to create words from the visible dice. You have to work fast, though, you’ve got a fairly short time limit; however, there are special “power-ups” that can help you. One freezes time, one doubles your score, and one lets you flick one of the dice.

Scrabble

You can’t go wrong with a classic game like Scrabble. If you’re one of the few people who don’t know anything about Scrabble, it’s a crossword-like game where you must spell words on a board using your hand of seven letters. Each letter is worth a certain amount of points and the grid on the playing field contains various multipliers to increase your score.

Scrabble’s interface is sub-par for me; it definitely doesn’t feel much like an iPhone application. The menus feel bloated and are somewhat cluttered. Starting a quick one-player game can be a chore and the multiplayer page feels like it’s overcrowded with options. Despite all of these nuances, Scrabble is Scrabble: fun. My only real gripes are the Best Word and Teacher features. They might as well rename them ‘Cheat.’

Words With Friends

Words With Friends is a free Scrabble almost-clone (it also has a paid, ad-free version). The reason I say almost is because it does have some features that are different from Scrabble. The most obvious of these is the fact that the multipliers (double letter, triple word, etc.) are in totally different places. This is nice, especially after playing Scrabble; it makes you think a little differently to score more points.

What makes Words With Friends cool is the multiplayer aspect (which, if you’re not going to play multiplayer, it’s not worth getting). The game will pair you up with another WWF player and you’ll be able to play against them in real time (or not; push notifications will let you know when it’s your turn). Scrabble has multiplayer, but it’s through Facebook and only lets you play against Facebook friends. All in all, Words With Friends is a really great free game (of course, you can get the paid version when those ads start getting annoying).

Imangi

Imangi is an interesting little game. A mix between a Rubik’s Cube and a crossword game, Imangi will have you entertained for quite a while. The concept is simple: create as many words as you can using letters on a 6×8 grid.

The catch is, however, that you need to move the letters around to score as many points as you can. You can either move the rows horizontally or the columns vertically. To find words, you just have to tap the letters; when you’re done, tap submit and your score will be tallied.

Lexic

Your goal in Lexic is find as many words as you can before time runs out. You start out with a grid of letters and two minutes on the clock. Just slide your finger across the letters to form words and score some points. When the word you formed disappears, more letters fall in from the top and you keep playing until time runs out. Lexic also has a mode where new letters don’t drop in and your task is to remove them all and a mode where the letters don’t disappear and you must find as many words as you can.

What really makes Lexic fun is its system of unlockables. Like an achievement system, by accomplishing different feats, you can unlock various interface changes, from different styles of letter tiles, to different colored frames, to special abilities that will help you in the game.

Textropolis

Last but not least, we’ve got Textropolis. In Textropolis, you go to various cities (all containing nine letter) where your challenge is to find as many words as you can in that city’s name. Finding enough words in one city will unlock the next. Each word you find will bring more people to the city while asking for a hint will make some leave.

Textropolis is guaranteed to keep you busy for quite a while. With 30 cities and about 100 or so words per city, it’s not a game that you’ll beat in one sitting.