Letterpress – Word Game

There are suggestions Letterpress proved so popular on its debut that it regularly broke Apple’s Game Center, on which it relies. We don’t know if that’s entirely true (and Apple’s certainly not telling), but it’s clear an awful lot of people are playing Letterpress. It’s easy to see why. Competitive online word games have always proved popular, and Letterpress marries an intuitive five-by-five Boggle-style grid with dynamics borrowed from land-grab games like Risk.

Matches are head-to-head: you versus a friend. Whether they remain a friend for long probably relies on how vicious you are playing the game, for example matching knowledge that ‘rialtos’ is a real word (eh, Mr. Matthew Bolton?) with an ability to defend tiles. On playing words, tiles flip to a player’s colour, but surrounding a tile protects it from subsequent flippage. Often, then, long words aren’t necessarily best – instead, you must consider ‘freeing’ defended tiles, in the hope of snaring them on your next go. Matches frequently become frantic tug o’ war sessions, with daring last-move plays that turn the entire bout on its head.

It’s rare for a word game to be thrilling, but Letterpress has had us on the edge of our seat on many occasions, sucking us into its minimalistic perfection. And there’s a lot to be said for its elegant simplicity. Sure, we’d quite like in-game chat or ongoing head-to-head scores, but just you, your opponent and a grid of letters is intoxicating enough, fashioning by far the best word game on the App Store. Although you can play for free, we doubt it’ll be long before you grab the sole 69p IAP that enables you to play more than two matches at a time; you’d best compile that list of words that include a Q and an X, too.