App Review: Scramble With Friends for iOS

Looking for a game that’s so quick the boss won’t even register the lack of activity from you? Then look no further. With less than two minutes per turn, I bring you Scramble With Friends. Yes, once again our friends at Zynga have come up with an addictive game similar to Boggle that promises not to waste to much of your time, well… not large chunks at least.

Starting the Game

Starting a game is the same as other Zynga games: you can either log in with an email address or a social network like Facebook and Twitter. You can use those social networks or your address book to find friends to play against. You can also choose to play against a random opponent.

Before each round, you’ll see a tally of scores that both you and your opponent have gained along with a final total when the match is over that states who won. You also see the coins you have gained in a horizontal stack above. Unless you count the number of coins in the image, it doesn’t really give you much information. It’s in the next screen where you see the actual count.

Gameplay

Before you begin your round you get the option to use power-ups. This is where you spend your coins and get an actual coin count. You start off with 14 coins, and you of course can buy more. I mean, this wouldn’t be a Zynga game without in-app purchases, right? I have never dropped below 10 coins and I “buy” power ups all the time. You get to use two power-ups during your round. One is free and the other costs a token. The three power-up options are:

• Freeze (works one time): Time is stopped for 20 seconds.
• Inspiration (works two times): Automatically reveals and highlights 3 words per use.
• Scramble (works three times): Reorganizes the letters on the board for a chance to find new words.

Gameplay is pretty straight forward; you try to find as many words as possible in a jumbled 4×4 grid of letters by connecting adjacent letters to form words within a two minute time frame. As long as the letters connect, you can do it an any configuration (i.e. left to right, up and down, etc.).

Final Thoughts

There are almost no server problems or any lengthy delay on loading from the server, so it’s a pretty stable program. It’s a quick and fun game with each round only taking 2 minutes. It is simple and can get boring at times, but it is competitive, and that can keep driving game play. I would recommend the free version to see if it’s something you want to buy. From there, you can buy the ad-free version for $1.99.

What do you think about Scramble With Friends? Do you play it, or do you enjoy playing something similar? Let us know in the comments section below.

iTunes Link: Scramble With Friends (Free)

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