Who doesn’t love a good word game? Nobody, that’s who! With this in mind EA Mobile is working on Word Smack, a new free-to-play spelling puzzler that takes its cues from Mastermind and Hangman.

Word Smack is, at its core, an asynchronous multiplayer word game where the highest score wins the match. Players will have to guess their assigned words using only a couple of hints and their personal spelling knowledge, with proper guesses leading to new words and potentially more points. Once they’ve exhausted their allotted 15 guesses their turn is over, however, so it pays to stop and think for a bit rather than charge blindly ahead. Of course that’s just the first round. The two that follow get progressively more difficult but also yield higher points. So really, it’s the final round that can make all the difference. Assuming someone hasn’t totally botched the first two, anyway.

Word Smack is due out this fall, and it won’t set you back a single pe–y.

Some game genres have had a rough time in their induction into the App Store (like action hack n’ slashes), but a few genres seem like they’ve been waiting for devices like the iPhone and iPad. Case in point? Word games work out perfectly with iOS. This week, we’ll showcase our Favorite Four word games.

Crosswords
Released ages ago in App Store years, Crosswords is the one word game to rule them all. At the high price point of $9.99, it’s a tough one to buy. We eventually just took the plunge about a year ago and the app has been well worth the cost. The reason it’s worth such a steep price (for an app) is that it’s the last crossword-related purchase anyone will ever need to make. The app is updated from a ton of free sources as well as some paid ones that require subscription info, like the New York Times. We will never run out of crossword puzzles. Our queue is a little backed up currently at 787 puzzles (and we’re not even using all of the free sources, just our favorites!). In our homescreen folder titled “Favorite Games,” Crosswords is the first app.

Words with Friends
It was obvious that a Scrabble-type game had to make the cut for this Favorite Four, but choosing between Scrabble and Words with Friends was quite difficult. We decided on Words with Friends simply because more of our friends play it (it’s cross-platform). While Scrabble would seem to provide more real-life friends to play with (by linking it with the Facebook Scrabble app), it’s simply easier to play with people we know via Words with Friends.


War of the Words (iPad only)
This app is a hidden gem. The app was released last year and still hasn’t had enough ratings for the App Store to display an average rating. We’re hoping that we might change things for the better with this post. War of the Words includes something that more iPad games should: players sitting across from one another. In War of the Words, when a player forms a words, the letter blocks go over to the other player. Whoever fills the other player’s side of the screen first wins. It’s a simple concept but provides some fast-paced wordy fun.

Wheel of Fortune
We can’t leave out one of the most popular word-based game shows: The Wheel of Fortune apps are great. There are plenty of puzzles to solve and the graphics are impressive on the iPad version. Give them a try!
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Here’s a story straight out of the “man bites dog” pile. While games making the jump from iOS to Android are commonplace, games going in the other direction are quite rare. Wordfeud is one of the few games to land in that category of Android to iOS ports. Originally launched on Android as an alternative to Words With Friends before Zynga and Newtoy released an Android version of the game, Wordfeud is now available on the App Store. The Scrabble-inspired word game sports asynchronous online multiplayer with push notifications when it’s your move, and works with current Wordfeud user accounts, and the game boasts over 2.5 million registered users to play against. The game does support cross-platform multiplayer between iOS and Android Wordfeud users, and can be played on both platforms with the same user account. The game synchronization between devices appears to be much smoother than Words With Friends’ implementation, as it loads up the current game list faster than Words With Friends does, especially on the Android side of the app. The iOS version is available as a free download on the App Store, with ads that display between moves. However, you can pay a one-time $2.99 in-app purchase to disable ads. Wordfeud is available from the App Store right now.