Words with Friends

Words with Friends is a multiplayer computer word game developed by Newtoy. Players take turns building words crossword-puzzle style in a manner similar to the classic board game Scrabble. The rules of the two games are similar, but Words with Friends is not associated with the Scrabble brand. Up to 40 games can be played simultaneously using push notifications to alert players when it is their turn. Players may look up friends either by username or through Facebook, or be randomly assigned an opponent through "Smart Match". Players can also find potential opponents using Community Match. Released in July 2009, Words with Friends is available for cross-platform play on devices running the operating systems Android, Windows Phone, and iOS (iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch). The game is also available on Facebook, Kindle Fire, and Nook Tablet. In addition, there is a chat feature built into the game that allows opponents to exchange messages. Between 2010 and 2011, Words with Friends was one of the top ranking games in the iOS app store, available as both a free ad-supported version and a paid version with no "third party ads between turns". As of May 2017, Words with Friends was the most popular mobile game in the United States. A sequel to the game, Words with Friends 2, came out in September 2017. The rules of the game are mostly the same as those of two-player Scrabble, with a few differences such as the arrangement of premium squares and the distribution and point values of some of the letters (see Scrabble letter distributions and point values). Players are given seven randomly chosen letter tiles, which are replenished until all 104 tiles have been used. Players take turns forming words on the board or, instead of playing a word, may also choose to swap tiles with the pool of currently unused tiles or pass their turn. Players can form words either vertically or horizontally on the board. The player's aim is to score as many points as possible. A letter placed on a DL or TL square doubles or triples the value of that letter on all words formed using that square.