It’s hard to put your finger on it, but there’s something particularly compelling about a good word game. From the simplicity of crosswords and Scrabble, to new challenges like Wordle, it seems the human mind is built to enjoy playing with language. But while most mobile games come from the app store, word games are a bit more of a mixed bag. Typically simple, many of the best ones just work in a browser – you can play them from pretty much any device. Which are the best? We’ve listed five firm favourites in our best mobile word games guide.
Wordle
Price All platforms: NY Times Wordle
Mozillion rating
Why play?Addictive and fun
Why avoid it?Not hugely challenging
If you’re on Twitter or Facebook, it’s almost impossible that you’ll have missed the meteoric rise of Wordle – a simple daily word game. As Wordle caught on, players shared the cryptic looking yellow and green block patterns that show how you’ve done on that day’s challenge. Curiosity about these enticed ever more people to give the game a go.
If you haven’t yet played it, Wordle involves trying to guess a five-letter word in no more than six turns. You start with a blank slate, enter your first guess word, and the game responds by telling you whether you guessed any letters correctly (yellow), and whether they’re in the right place (green). Use the feedback to refine your guess, try to avoid pitfalls, and with luck you’ll get the answer before you run out of attempts.
Wordle’s difficulty is perfectly judged such that you’ll solve it almost every day, and typically in only around five minutes. But even though there’s only one word a day, the game tracks your history on a specific device – use the same phone every day and you’ll get stats to show how you’re doing over time.
Simple, addictive, but not too much of an effort, Wordle makes an almost perfect short diversion. However, it’s not all that satisfying if you prefer longer, harder challenges.
Quordle
Price All platforms: Quordle
Mozillion rating
Why play?Wordle, but harder and more engrossing
Why avoid it?Takes a little longer
If you love Wordle, but maybe find it a little easy, you’ll probably enjoy Quordle. This browser-based game works in exactly the same way as the hugely popular original, with the twist that you’re trying to solve four five-letter words at the same time. You have nine guesses to do it, which sounds like plenty, but often proves otherwise.
Quordle requires slightly different tactics to Wordle, with your first few guesses likely to focus on ruling in or out as many letters as possible. Sometimes your early breakthroughs give way to stalemate as you burn through repeated guesses, and sometimes inspiration (or luck) strikes and you’ll solve all four words with guesses to spare.
This game offers a slightly more in-depth take on the Wordle experience. While solving Wordle sometimes feels anticlimactic, using logic to scrape through Quordle in nine guesses can make you feel like a genius. Like Wordle, it’s free and there’s just one game a day – it’s a decent diversion on a coffee break or over lunch.
Words With Friends
Price Android Words with Friends, Free with in-app purchases
iOS Words with Friends Classic, Free with in-app purchases
Mozillion rating
Why install?Simple multiplayer word game
Why avoid it? Feels quite arcadey
If you’ve ever played Scrabble, you know how to play Words With Friends. Available for Android, iOS and other platforms including Facebook, it’s a tile-based word game for two players, following very similar rules to the classic.
You can play by yourself in solo mode, but the fun comes with challenging friends or others to a match. Play more, win more, and you’ll find tougher opponents to give you a real mental workout.
Because Words With Friends uses a smaller board than Scrabble, it can fast become challenging to place words. While that’s part of the fun, we’re less keen on the app’s adverts, which are frequent and intrusive. Although you can subscribe to disable them, it’s not clear how to do it from the app. Even with them gone this still isn’t a particularly relaxing game – its cartoonish noises and animations might not be to everyone’s taste. And while the countless goals, rewards and challenges help to ‘gamify’ the whole experience, some players will find it all a bit too arcadey.
CTA: Need a bigger screen or a faster framerate? Check our our guide to the best mobile phones for gaming
Scrabble Go
Price Android Scrabble Go, Free with in-app purchases
iOS Scrabble Go, Free with in-app purchases
Mozillion rating
Why install?The original crossword game…
Why avoid it?…if you can find it in there
If the arcadey nature of Words With Friends is a turnoff, you’ll probably be disappointed by this official Scrabble game. While the original, no frills board game is in there, you’ll need to barge past loads of intrusive messaging and the offer of multiplayer games with strangers before you get near it. That wouldn’t be so bad, but even while you’re playing you’ll still get nagged to start other games with random people.
That’s a shame, because it detracts from the experience that many Scrabble players would want – a no frills, device-based version of the classic board game. Happily there’s still plenty to like in this app, including multiplayer games against friends, and a solo game against computer opponents with a choice of difficulty levels.
There are some omissions, though – you can’t play a solo game against more than one computer opponent. We also would have liked an in-person mode, where you could pass a single device around between multiple players. All the same, this is as close as you’ll get to proper Scrabble on a mobile device, and it’s not bad if you ignore the distractions.
Wordscapes
Price Android Wordscapes, Free with in-app purchases
iOS Wordscapes, Free with in-app purchases
Mozillion rating
Why install?A great balance of relaxing and challenging
Why avoid it?You’ll want to get rid of the ads
The best word games combine wordplay with addictive game mechanics, and none do it more convincingly than Wordscapes. Like all the best games it has a simple concept – you get a few letters and a simple crossword-style game board, and you need to spell words with the letters. When you’ve guessed all the words and filled in the board, you move on to a new one.
It’s even simpler than it sounds. On the first few levels you’ll have just three letters, each of which you can use only once, so you’ll only be making three-letter words. As you progress you’ll move up to four, then five letters, with more complex grids and less obvious words. The difficulty curve is nicely judged. The game never seems to get head-scratchingly hard, but there are clues available if you need them.
Play for long enough and you’ll unlock multiplayer features, allowing you to create or join teams and play in team events. Unfortunately, you’ll also see a mind-numbing number of adverts, which crop up roughly every other level. You can get rid of them for about £6. While that sounds steep, without them this is an addictive and gently challenging game without the intrusive features found in some other word game apps.
