Filed under: Gaming, Software, Reviews, iPhone, iPod touch
TUAW Review: Scrabble for iPhone
Hasbro's Scrabble is a classic board game, and Electronic Arts made the crossword game one of the first releases for the iPhone / iPod touch platform. Although the game has been available since July, I decided to wait to review it until some of the early bugs were squashed and new features were added. Since Scrabble is a holiday favorite for families, it's the perfect time for a review of the game.
The original board game is played with 100 small hardwood tiles, most of which have a letter of the alphabet and a point value printed on them. The playing board is a 15 by 15 grid with some squares marked as double or triple letters or words. The object, to those few people who have never played the game, is to create words from a rack of letters randomly assigned to you.
Points are assigned per word based on the individual point values of the tiles and whether a letter or word overlays a colored multiplier square. After the first word has been placed on the board, subsequent words must touch another word in crossword puzzle fashion.
The iPhone game, available in the App Store (click opens iTunes) for US$4.99, follows the rules of the board game to the letter (no pun intended).
When the app is launched, players are directed to a settings screen that provides a choice of Quick Play, Multiplayer mode (requires multiple players on the same Wi-Fi network), custom play (playing against the computer, against others in "pass and play mode", or solo), options for music and sound effects, and statistics on your play.
Most players, given the amount of time many people have to play games, are going to want to select the Quick Play mode against the iPhone. Believe it or not, the iPhone is a formidable opponent when you're playing Scrabble! In my first ten games, I won only one game without using the "Best Word" assistance that is built into the game.
The graphics in this game are excellent. The board is true to the Scrabble Crossword Game and the pieces look amazingly realistic. If you select a fake word like KWYJIBO or otherwise break any of the other rules of the game, you are properly chastised (and the Scrabble police will also block you from using profanity or ethnic slurs, so don't bother trying).
I hate to say this, but the music in this game sounds like the soundtrack to an adult movie -- not that I'd know what that sounds like... It gets kind of annoying after a very short time, so fortunately there is an option to turn off the music. Unfortunately, you can't substitute your iTunes music for the soundtrack -- the double-press of the home button to call up the mini-Music controls works as it does in other apps, but as soon as you close it Scrabble mutes your song playback.
Scrabble provides an aid in those cases where you can't think of a good word to put on the board -- it's called Best Word, and it uses the built-in word dictionary and the logic used by your computer opponent to determine the highest point value word from a particular rack of tiles. You only get to use the Best Word assistance four times during a normal game, but it can often make the difference between winning and losing against the computer opponent.
Are there any annoyances with Scrabble? Well, it does suck the batteries down if you're playing in multiplayer mode for any length of time. The tiles can sometimes be hard to "grab" with your finger to move into place. Finally, it would be good to have an onboard copy of the Scrabble dictionary to check some of the words that are provided by the game. Not that I think my iPhone is cheating, but some of its word choices seem to be questionable.
What's your favorite board game for the iPhone? Let us know in the comments section. Be sure to check out the gallery below for dazzling color screenshots of this game.
Gallery: Scrabble for iPhone
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
fuzzywells said 10:13AM on 12-27-2008
Does it have an email/IM feature to allow Internet play?
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vballas said 10:30AM on 12-27-2008
Why is there not an international version ?
Would love to have this but not available ...
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truss said 12:29PM on 12-27-2008
Scrabble is owned by Hasbro in the US and Canada and by Mattel everywhere else. Since this version is developed by Hasbro, they only have the rights to sell it in the US and Canada. An international version would have to come from Mattel.
KarlW said 1:36PM on 12-27-2008
Seriously. I would love to play this (although I hope it gets a better paint job)
Seamaster said 10:46AM on 12-27-2008
Not available outside the US iTunes store.
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Alistair said 9:50PM on 12-27-2008
It is currently available in the US and Canadian iTunes stores.
erech said 11:17AM on 12-27-2008
you actually can substitute your own music during gameplay, you just need your iBuds to do it. simply start your ipod, then while a song is playing, start scrabble. your music will die as the game launches. then once you have begun a game, click the remote button on your phones. now you can play, pause, replay or forward past your own music--ALL during gameplay!
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Adam said 11:36AM on 12-27-2008
Actually, you don't need the earbuds to listen to music during the game, or any other game for that matter. Once the music fades out, just double-click the home button, and-voila-you've got a mini music controller from which you can unpause your music. This works from anywhere on the iphone/ipod touch, and is also a very handy way to skip songs without having to swipe to unlock, since it works from the lock screen as well.
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Tony said 12:01PM on 12-27-2008
In the article it states that this method does not work, hence the requirement for earbuds to work around it.
Tracy said 10:26PM on 12-28-2008
Adam, thanks for the great tip on playing music. This is certainly more of a bug than a feature. Why, oh why don't more developers realize that we players want to hear their our own music rather than their limited, looping sound track. Music plays a big part in many games, but this certainly is not one of them. Please Hasbro, update this to allow me to listen to my own tunes.
Brian said 2:46PM on 12-27-2008
is TUAW a word in this scrabble game? ;]
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rTwelve said 7:44PM on 12-27-2008
Yeah, using a blank for that W is kind of a waste...
MJ said 8:11PM on 12-27-2008
Scrabble was one of the first three apps I bought for the iPhone and so far it's the only app I was willing to pay $10 for (the price has since gone down).
As much as I love the game, this version has three main problems for me:
1) The multiplier squares should be using the standard colors: red/blue/pink, etc. After playing thousands of games on "normal" boards, it's harder for me to recognize strategic opportunities based solely on those squares' positions, especially when zoomed in. Since this is an officially-sanctioned version of the game, it shouldn't be a licensing issue.
2) Certain words are disallowed because the game uses the OSPD4 (scholastic) dictionary instead of the TWL98 (tournament) dictionary. Since the word lists I study come from TWL98, I'd like the option to switch.
3) And the big one: The gap between the normal and hard settings is too big for intermediate players. If I played 100 games on normal, I'd win all 100. If I played 100 games on hard, I'd be lucky to win more than 8 or 9. If I've stopped playing the game as often as I used to, it's because I have to choose between not being challenged and beating my head against a wall. I'd settle for a medium setting where my expectation is to win less than a third of my games, rather than less than a tenth.
Unfortunately, there has only been one minor update since this program was released over the summer, and I'm not holding my breath for another. Now, if someone would write an ISC client for the iPhone, I would happily dump this version and play that one instead. :-)
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tuaw said 10:15PM on 12-27-2008
The wife and I play this on our iphones, and like it quite a bit. Biggest problems in my book are:
1) No control of dictionary
2) No bluff/challenge play - the game won't accept bluff/bad words at all (this also stinks because you can 'try' words that might be good - sameful cheating in my book ;-))
3) And this is the biggie - no way to disable the 'best word' cheat in multiplayer. I'd settle for opponenet notification when BW was used, but disabling it altogether would be much better.
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AppBeacon said 9:24PM on 12-28-2008
I agree. I can't stand the fact that the cheat feature can't be turned off. I also wish we could use the optional playing rules defined in the original game. For example, we like to be able to take the blank if we have the appropriate letter.
A better dictionary would be nice as well. I think the official scrabble dictionary is a joke.
Overall, I love this game. My wife and I play it all the time. With 2 young boys, it's hard to play the board game anymore. We can sit on the couch and pass it back and forth without risk of tiles getting knocked all over the room. We even managed to play it for 40 minutes while stuck on traffic one day (dead stop due to an accident).
Jon Kessler said 1:45AM on 12-28-2008
I enjoy this app. Well worth the 4.99. And most of the detractions seem like minor quibbles (with the exception of the dictionary substitution, which I agree is a must for Scrabble nuts).
Some things that could take better advantage of Iphone capabilities.
1. Something a bit less than "Best Word" sort of like the hint function in Trism. Best Word seems like just cheating, but I wouldn't mind a little bitty nudge. Example, give me the capability to ask for dictionary words with selected letters in them. Or, let me see which tile the "Best Word" builds off of.
2. I'd like to see the challenge handled more realistically. Don't tell me its not a word then give me another chance, have some algorithm to challenge me. Similarly, let me challenge the computer (which should occasionally fudge it just as we all do).
3. Use accelerometer to let me throw the board in disgust and wreck the game, just as I do in real life when losing to my wife.
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umijin said 7:53AM on 12-29-2008
Actually, the Best Word isn't the best word. It's the one scoring the most points, which isn't necessarily the best word to use if it sets up your opponent for an easy 3X word (or something comparable).
I don't use the shaking to shuffle the tiles. It's a waste of motion and works inconsistently on my 1G Touch. But I like your idea of flipping the board in disgust when you are flustered.
Mac Diva said 2:59AM on 12-28-2008
Scrabble was originally $9.99 at the App Store, so I would urge people to grab it at the lower price while they can.
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umijin said 7:54AM on 12-29-2008
Ehh? I want $5 back then. No fair making us pay more money to be beta testers for an unpolished game.
Morgan said 8:46PM on 12-28-2008
The reviews on the app store listing aren't glowing. Has it improved since those reviews were left?
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