Is your mind ready to be boggled? Is your brain in need of training or your vocabulary in need of expansion? Well then, you’re like us – in need of a workout but not the kind that involves lifting weights and getting sweaty. These word-based mobile games are designed for a mental workout. They will expand and test your vocabulary while improving your cognitive skills, deductive reasoning, and memory.
So flex that grey matter and limber up your frontal cortexes folks, we’ve got some brains that need training. Say “hello” or rather “salutations” to the top word games in the app stores.
Wordscapes (iOS, Android)
Casual mobile games publisher People Fun holds the longstanding record for the highest grossing word-based mobile game with their ingenious puzzle-collection, Wordscapes.
If you too are a word-nerd, then you don’t win any prizes for realising that the game’s name comes from combining “word” and “landscapes”. What you might not realize is how attractive these landscapes are. As players progress through an extensive selection of puzzles, word-searches, anagrams, and crosswords they unlock new backgrounds which truly add to the relaxing ambient feel of this award-winning mobile game.
Word Collect (iOS, Android)
Verbivores and word buffs rejoice! Word Collect adds so many new word puzzles that their app store descriptions and promotional graphics can’t keep up with the volume. At the time of writing, 2500+ puzzles were available. But there may well be 5000 at the time of publication. Most of Word Collect’s challenges are word block puzzles wherein players need to discover hidden words amid a jumble of letters. Doing so earns them coins and rewards.
It’s an admittedly simple prospect but Word Collect’s popularity speaks to how engaging and addictive it really is. It’s easy to play, but hard to conquer. Better still, if you’re looking for mobile games you can play without an internet connection, Word Collect can be played offline. It’s a great game to pick up and put down on the go. So rather than doom-scrolling down your Facebook feed during your morning commute or constitutional, hone your vocabulary with Word Collect instead!
Word Trip (iOS, Android)
Are you ready for an anagram-based adventure around the world? Word Trip could safely be described as a combination of Wordscapes and Word Collect. The primary base-game follows the same swipe-and-unjumble gameplay as Word Collect – allowing players to unlock attractive and tranquil real-world backgrounds.
The activities combine this letter unjumbling with trivia and grammatical “hints”, tasking the player with a question to answer and a letter jumble with which to answer it. For this reason, it would be a fantastic activity for non-native speakers looking to brush up on their English skills, as well as for those who are just trying to keep their brains healthy and active. It’s no surprise that they won an Academics Choice award.
Words With Friends 2 (iOS, Android)
Words With Friends originally skyrocketed to popularity on Facebook. It reinvigorated everyone’s childhood love for a game that had been locked away in the attic after having caused too many family arguments over the years. That game, of course, is Scrabble.
In Scrabble, the object of the game is to take turns using your selection of letters, each with different numerical values, to earn the highest score by placing a word on the shared square board while trying to multiply their scores by placing key words and letters over bonus tiles. Whereas in Words With Friends, the object of the game is to take turns using your selection of letters, each with different numerical values, to earn the highest score by placing a word on the shared square board while trying to multiply their scores by placing key words and letters over bonus tiles. Okay, fine, it’s pretty much Scrabble. But Words With Friends 2 does offer some cool new features, such as word puzzles, goals, challenges, quick-play events, lightning games, and letter customization.
Scrabble GO (iOS, Android)
As much as Words With Friends strives to distinguish itself from the copyrighted Hasbro favourite by adding new mechanics and changing the value of the lettered tiles, for many of us, nothing compares to the original. The mobile version of the classic boardgame has overtaken Words With Friends 2 in the highest grossing word games ranks in part due to the same popular features offered by Words With Friends: custom letter tiles, speed-games, etc. So, in an act of lexicographical karma, the original letter-game king sits on his throne once more. All is fair in words and war, after all.
Hey, you can’t beat the golden oldies, right? And there really is nothing more satisfying than proving your vocabulary exceeds that of your siblings. I think we all remember the first time we beat our parents at Scrabble too, it was a logophile’s rite of passage.
In many of these games, the more advanced the word the better. Which reminds us of one of our own favourite words, a word that would score highly in Scrabble and one that could be used to describe your humble and magnanimous author – sesquipedalian: a person who overuses big words to give the appearance of intelligence.
So, if you want to give him a reprimanding, reproaching, or remonstrating, or if you just want to recommend some other mobile letter games you love, be sure to get involved in the comments.
