Tue Apr 28 2026
Play your best words in the latest release from Words With Friends!
Compete with friends and family or find the perfect match to complete your Daily Goals!
Smoother gameplay than ever before with new updates and bug fixes.
Classic Words With Friends is the ultimate evolution of the social word-game genre. It manages to capture that classic 'board game night' feeling and transport it into a seamless mobile experience. The matchmaking is incredibly smooth, allowing you to have dozens of games going simultaneously with friends or random opponents from around the globe. The turn-based nature makes it the perfect 'companion' game—something you check in on during your morning coffee or while waiting in line.
The UI is clean and high-contrast, making it easy to see the board even on smaller screens. The addition of the 'Solo Challenge' mode provides a great way to practice your vocabulary without the pressure of a human opponent. While it has evolved with new boosters and events over the years, the core satisfaction of landing a high-scoring word on a 'Triple Word Score' tile remains as potent as ever. It is a social staple that is as much about maintaining relationships as it is about spelling, making it an essential app for word lovers.
Global turn-based social multiplayer
Solo Challenge mode against advanced AI
In-game dictionary and word-strength meter
Weekly community challenges and rewards
Always look at the board before your own tiles. Positioning a 'Z' or 'Q' on a 'Double Letter' square that also hits a 'Triple Word' square is the fastest way to win. Don't waste high-value letters on small words if a bonus square is reachable in one or two turns.
Use the 'Solo Challenge' to play against the 'Word Masters.' These AI opponents have distinct difficulty levels and using them is the best way to practice defensive play and board control.
Yes, you can have up to 30 active games running simultaneously with different opponents.
This game has always allowed cheating. You can try using words you don’t know without penalty. You can see the tiles your challenger has at the end of the game. Etc. But now you play against people who can swap letters without losing a turn, and you’ll never know it. We all have played games where we end up getting crappy letters the entire time. It’s frustrating, but it’s the luck of the draw. I don’t think it’s too much to ask of the developers to have matches where you agree to not use swap + and other cheats that you can purchase. Everyone who plays a game should have the same rules. (I realize they want to make money from these cheats, but the relentless ads should be making them money too.) The game has speed games and solo games with separate boards already. Just add a true WWF classic mode that doesn’t allow paid cheats. It’s not that much to ask, if you want to keep all your customers happy. At this point, I’m going to stop playing with real people and just play the solo mode. Or maybe just stop playing altogether. That means much less ad revenue for them, when they could just allow another format instead.
The game play is fun and exciting. I really enjoy so many aspects of the game play with all the new features. Duela and solo are all excellent additions for true word lovers like myself. But for the love of God, remove the ads, pop ups, constantly flashy things! It slows up game play and completely alters the gaming experience. For the record ‘pop ups’ are annoying all the time. They are annoying between each game, between each move, when your loading the game, and when you playing one of the new features. I don’t know what marketing experts came to Zynga and said ok, you have all these players, what they want in addition to the game play is to be constantly bombarded with ads for other aps (that are almost always some type of rip off), and things they do not want or need. ‘ someone said ‘brilliant’ and they decide to implement it. There are ads and pop ups in the game and now you have an ad banner on top of the game with prevents reaching searching features without clicking on them. You must make a ton of money from this advertising. But Zynga has forgotten that without customers you can’t make money from advertising. This game went from something that everybody I know played to ‘😖are you still playing that!? ?!’ Finally, removal of the option to play without the ads was the lowest blow. I love the game but please stop with advertising. Despite what you believe we do not want to see advertisements every second we actually log into the game to play it!
Sadly the developers have ruined this game. Every time you take a turn now you have to watch some bull crap ads and some of those will not clear until they open a web page or the App Store. When I first started playing I bought the ad free version. That apparently is no longer a thing. I like playing on my skill and do not use the “advantages” because what’s the point if your not being honest? I’ve been playing without any of that and the main thing I cannot take is the adds that constantly after every turn make you wait to play and sometimes won’t clear till you close the app and reopen it. If that’s not enough the header at the top of the game constantly pelts you with adds as well. I hate that I cannot play this game honestly and know that others are as well. I expect my opponents are using the advantages but I mostly win unless they are using one of the cheats other than the ones tied into the game. Obviously the developers are money hungry and seems that’s all they care about cause you can spend money to get the advantages and all that. It would be great if they got rid of all that crap and made a straight up game no strings attached, play by your skill not your cheats. Sorry for the rant but there are plenty others like me I know that just enjoy playing without being bombarded with ads and opponents that may or may not be cheating. Guess I go back to my wordjong and scrabble, too many frustrations with what this game has become.
Number 1 complaint: dictionary is lousy. Zynga should fire whoever is in charge of it, but I'm guessing it's a vacant position. Many real words are not allowed, many abbreviations are allowed (eg. mho) and others not (eg. dna). Many slang terms, such as "za" for "pizza" (never heard that used in my life) are OK, but not "refi" for "refinance" which is used even in TV ads. On and on with inconsistencies. And many words have no dictionary entry but Zynga has decided they are valid words nevertheless. Words are the center point of this game, to which Zynga pays little attention, preferring instead to focus on making stupid graphics and figuring out ways to try to make us play other games when they can't even get this one right. Last review remarks: Why do we HAVE to have boxes and characters and prizes at all, much less all this stuff designed for 12-year old girls? Not everyone wants congratulations for using a Q in a word, or for making multiple word combinations. There is so much irrelevant garbage that zynga makes pop up, for which one has to click “great” to get past it and move on. And then the dictionary that controls word usage is crappy. Just terrible. The words are the heart of the game! Why don’t the designers spend their time on the dictionary, rather than spending all their time on ridiculous graphics that slow everything up? Why can’t I get into my settings and opt out of ALL the irrelevant garbage?
I have reached frustration point with this game. Just played, and computer used the word « Etnas » which they defined as « A volcano in Italy. » The word « A » signifies One, and there are no plural volcanoes with this name in Italy. Plus, it is a proper noun, the use of which computer denies to players. Computer uses Spanish or French words, such as rio or je, but when I put in a foreign word, computer rejected it. Computer, up until recently, rejected the word « Zen » but now accepts it. Not appropriate ! Often times, the computer game is described as « easy » but uses words I have never heard of, such as arcane flora or fauna from Africa or Australia or archaic money from Asian countries. And that is supposed to be the EASY game? I have a Master’s Degree in French and taught high school French, Spanish and English for thirty-eight years, so I am not vocabulary - challenged. The developers need to do some serious work improving the solo challenges making them fairer. The rules should be the same for players and the computer. If a word is allowed for the computer, it should be allowed for players. You either include proper nouns or you don’t. The same for foreign words. ( Neither of which are accepted in Scrabble.)The easy challenges should not include such things as archaic spellings of Scottish language or weird plants from Asia. Those belong only in the more difficult challenges.
I’ve been playing for years, but lately I’ve been getting a lot of “bots” playing with me. Some I’ve seen on known bot lists, and some are just obvious (eg they always play immediately, day or night...). I’ve also been getting a lot of scammers. You can tell when you are playing a game against someone you don’t know, and they always start a chat and say the same old lines, like “Hello. How are you doing today?” or “How is the situation where you are?” typically with very poor grammar, misspellings, and lack of punctuation. I’ve also seen some with photos that are obviously not theirs (like stock photos, photos of foreign actors, and photos of military Admirals and Generals.) A legit stranger who just wants to play won’t typically make conversation. No one has asked me to wire him $20,000 yet, but when someone is really pushy about chatting, and then gets angry when I don’t respond, that’s a giveaway. This is happening a LOT lately, even though I’ve tried to make myself invisible. Also, now I’m seeing obvious bugs; for example, a game with someone I know showed me that it was his turn last week. It said he needed to play, or the game would be forfeited. Then, my app showed that his time ran out and the game was over. But, his app showed his turn, he played it, and now, a week later, his app shows it being MY turn, and that I am about to forfeit. He texted me saying, you know, it’s your turn still... are you still playing? It doesn’t even show on my app under “completed games.” I tried deleting and reinstalling the app, and I tried both Classic and WWF2, but nothing works. There is an obvious glitch in the system.
Why is it that the developers have only addressed bug fixes and technical issues that other reviews have mentioned... but have not addressed the issue with the creepy men/scammers that start a game with you, and a few turns in start messaging you asking personal questions and to chat in another messaging app!? This is incredibly frustrating! The moment I tell them “No, and that I’m simply just trying to play a game,” they stop playing and I’m stuck waiting 10+ days for the game to resign itself. This takes up a valuable spot where I could be playing someone that actually wants to play. I recently muted one guy and was still able to see his messages anyways! THIS NEEDS TO BE FIXED! And by fixed, I mean GET RID OF THESE PEOPLE! Not only are the scammers and creepy men an issue, but the amount of ads and pop ups are ridiculous! Honestly there’s so much going on within the app, so much clutter, and has all these dumb daily goals and mini challenges that it’s hard to navigate the app. I can care less for any of that stuff, I just want to play the game against friends or others. Get rid of this junk! I’m going to need to find another app to play on if this doesn’t change soon!
Update Dec 2021: No change. Kroger, you are killing me. You were my childhood grocery store and I loved you. I hate your recipe ads and will never watch that or any others. Ridiculous. And now WWF, you have put a banner at the top and I can’t see the score. Knock it off please. The game itself, I’d give a 5. It’s fun, good to have a touchstone for friends far away, and unknown friends. But OMG, the ads are ridiculous. There are now TWO-MINUTE ads in the game, over and over and over again. Playing the solo 12 level “find a word” games, it takes 25 minutes to play. 1 minute for the game itself and 24 minutes of ads. Really WWF? Really? I won’t speak for anyone else, but these days I have the attention span of a gnat. The 30 second gross and repetitious Gardenscapes ads now seem like a nanosecond. Who does this? And advertisers, if you can’t say it in 15 or 20 seconds, then get a better marketing firm. You are being played. Maybe I watched 40 seconds the first time, but after 6 times in a row, it’s mind numbing insanity. I now play WWF and read a book at the same time. So thanks for that. Advertisers please reconsider...a solid 20 second ad will grab my attention, 2 minutes in a game ruins all credibility or desire to purchase your products. I wrote this over a year ago and now it’s happening again. Knock it off advertisers!








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