If you’re prone to analog, you’ll still appreciate the wooden tiles of a real Scrabble game. The app will alert you when it’s your turn so you can play throughout your day without constantly checking in.

Play with friends or the computer and chat while you’re playing. You must start from the middle of the board and you’ll get more points based on the squares on which you play - double letter, triple word, etc. Played with the same rules as Scrabble, you get seven letters to start. Words With Friends is Scrabble’s step-cousin. Fun if you’re in line for a long time but not something I’m itching to beat my record at. You play “TENNIS” and “REALISTIC,” your opponent plays “INTERCEPTIONS” and “ELASTICITY.” So far, the bots are kicking my butt. This game is fun because you can always find a bigger word. Use up all the letters between the two of you, and the game goes to the person with the most letters. You can protect letters from blocking them in.

Your opponent can steal letters away by using them after you. From 25 letters, spell words that use as many letters as possible. Letterpress is a lot like Boggle, except your letters don’t have to be consecutive. Once you guess enough words to progress to the next round, the app alerts you with a green light.Ī friend recommended this to me, saying she’d recently deleted it from her phone because it was too addicting.

You do know the number of letters in each word and how many words there are. In Whirly Word, you get a wheel with six letters and you have to spell words using just those letters. My five favorite word games - rated worst to best - available as both Apple and Android apps. Some might provide the perfect break to unblock your writer’s block, too. Now even the word nerds have their share of smartphone entertainment to choose from. TechCrunch reported in a 2017 article people spent an average of five hours a day on their phones - switching between social media and games and banking apps and e-readers. Before apps, it was the only game our brick-looking Nokia’s could support, and it was better entertainment than spelling funny words upside-down using the calculator (the next coolest game our cell phones had).

Slider puzzles seem hard for my brain