Words with Friends

Words with Friends brought the principle of the classic Scrabble game to mobile phones and added the most important thing — asynchronous turns, meaning players didn't need to sit down at the same time but could stretch a single match over days or weeks, doing anything else in between moves. Building words from letters on a virtual board, scoring for rare letters and bonus tiles, all stayed true to the original; only the controls shifted to touch dragging and tapping instead of placing wooden tiles.

Zynga released Words with Friends in 2009, and the game became one of the first truly big mobile multiplayer hits, because it combined a familiar and trusted game principle with a new platform where you could play anytime with anyone from your contact list. It was precisely this social dimension — the ability to play with friends remotely and watch for a notification when it's your turn — that turned it into a phenomenon reaching well beyond the traditional mobile gaming audience.

The free-to-play model with ads and optional purchases became a standard the title helped establish in the industry, and its success led to a long line of sequels and helped turn word games on mobile into a permanent, stable category alongside action and arcade titles. The popularity was so great that the name Words with Friends became a common shorthand for the entire category of asynchronous social games players return to once a day rather than in long, continuous sessions.

Why play it: A great choice for players who want calm, thoughtful fun shared with friends at a distance, without pressure for an instant reaction.