Scrabble versus Wordfeud versus Words with Friends

 I’ve had my Droid X for nearly a year now, and I’ve found quite a lot of decent games for the device. I haven’t yet discussed the crossword games on Lungfishopolis, and now that Scrabble has made its Android debut, it seems time.

 I first tried Words With Friends (pictured far left) when a friend with an iPhone recommended it to me. I loved the fact that it was cross-platform, so I jumped on board. But despite holding my own with some very tough opponents, I soon grew a bit weary of Words With Friends. It seemed that so often, games would degenerate to small, tightly-packed clusters of two and three letter words. I blame this largely on the score tile placements.

 So I tried an alternative: Wordfeud. (pictured center) I’ve found the score tile placement in Wordfeud to be far better than in Words With Friends, and the word-clumping problem is far less pronounced. There’s also a “random” score tile layout, pictured above, but I don’t use that. While Wordfeud doesn’t look nearly as nice as Words With Friends, it runs faster and with fewer connection-related bugs. But the real win for me was that it notified me when friends played a word, even when I didn’t have the app running on my phone. Maybe Words With Friends does something like this on the iPhone, but not on Android. It really makes a huge difference. Playing the iOS version, my wife thinks that the game timeout is far too short, but that’s one of our only complaints about Wordfeud.

And then Scrabble came out. (pictured far right) Actual Scrabble-branded Scrabble for Android. I’d seen it on iOS before, but the Android version is relatively new. I downloaded it immediately. The App is slow. It’s tragically slow. It’s gastropodically slow, and I don’t care if that’s not a word. Running Scrabble on my Droid X feels like running Netscape Navigator on a 286. It does have the best score tile layout of the three games, and it’s nice that it tracks your highest-scoring words, but it’s slow. And the advertising is far more obtrusive than either Wordfeud or Words With Friends. And the notification doesn’t work on my phone. It says that it requires an active Google account, but I have one and I get no notifications. The settings contain no hints as to why. And it’s slow.

So, in summary, here are the three apps and their individual plusses and minuses.

Words With Friends

  • Shake to shuffle letter tiles is a nice feature
  • When you try to play an invalid word, it tells you exactly which word(s) are invalid.
  • Has a terrible score tile layout
  • Crashes a lot when connection is poor
  • No notifications

Wordfeud

  • Avatars are a nice feature
  • Good score tile layout
  • Has notifications that work!
  • Quick and lightweight
  • Inferior graphics; zoom is clunky

Scrabble

  • Shows points as you’re making words, which is nice feature
  • Uses a Facebook or Origin account to log in
  • Has the best score tile layout
  • Tracks your highest scoring words
  • Slow as hell
  • Way too many ads
  • Notifications do not work

They’re all good apps, each with features that the others don’t have, but I’ll be staying with Wordfeud. I’m sure that each of the three apps will continue to add features, and maybe the Scrabble app will somehow manage to slim down, but it’s EA-branded so I hold little hope for that behemoth altering development with any agility.

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3 Responses to “Scrabble versus Wordfeud versus Words with Friends”

  1. Bram

    Nice review! I’ve been playing wordfeud for a little while now, and I do like it. I prefer its graphis over Words with Friends though because it’s easier on the eyes. Might be what you’re used to though! And if you have a big screen on your phone (or tablet), you don’t need the zoom option.

    The things I don’t like about wordfeud:

    * You don’t see what words do not exist (which words for friends does, indeed)
    * It doesn’t keep track of your scores or finished games.
    * Related to that, it would be nice if it would offer the option of playing against someone who is more on your level. I don’t mind the tight-packed gameplay myself as it’s a great way to score a great deal of points using just a few letters, but I get that some may find this frustrating.
    * Lately it seems to get slowed down and I do get connection errors. Maybe because it’s getting more popular.
    * The random board is completely useless. Your chances of winning are hardly skill-based anymore.

    I’ve only tried Words with Friends as an alternative, but that doesn’t offer Dutch as language, which is my native tongue. I do get by in English, but it’s more difficult obviously.

  2. Gaines

    Nice review. I take issue with just one thing, your complaint about tight word play on WWF. My experience with Scrabble is that tight word play is more of a function of the skill of the players than of the layout of the board. Better players incorporate defense more thoroughly into their play. Thus, a game on a regular Scrabble board is often a tightly played match. It means you are more likely to score 2, 3, or 4 words at once (scoring more points) and at the same time, avoid setting up plays for your opponent on high value multiplying tiles.

  3. tizzle

    @Gaines

    Yes, more advanced Scrabble players will hook onto other words (creating 2-5 words per turn), but the layout of the board encourages players to play longer words despite this.

    I concur with the author that WWF will lead to very defensive games. It is simply too easy to set another player up for a double+triple word score.

    Scrabble has the best board layout and just a few improvements to the app are all it needs.

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