Scramble with Friends

Currently addicted to this game on my Android. It's effectively a mini word-search puzzle on a 4-by-4 box. Each game pits one opponent facing off against another. There's 3 rounds to each game and the players take it in turns. There is a 2 minute time limit on each round, but you can play them whenever you like, so it's really down to you as for what pace you wish to play complete games at.

I'm playing with some random internet players currently. Along with a "Mrbritton", with whom I've had some amazing games so far. Very close matches :) Great game for improving your quick thinking. When I started off a week ago I was only able to manage 35~, but now I can identify around 55~ words in the 2 minute time limit. Quite a lot of tactics as well depending on the bonuses you choose to help during the round (You are able to equip 2 bonuses out of a potential 3 in total).

Theres "Freeze", a one-time use move which literally freezes the clock for a seemingly random amount of time, but I'd say it's usually close to 10-15 seconds.

"Inspiration", which gives you 3 helping hints for words you haven't discovered yet. Very useful as it allows you to work out words that stem from this as *well* as the word it effectively gives you for free.

And "Scramble", which just rearranges the word-search box. Unless there's some hidden use to it, for me it doesn't seem to be that helpful right now. I'm thinking, if you aren't someone who needs the freeze utility, then this could be quite advantageous, as it would open up word possibilities that aren't feasible with the original box. It's worth testing out though :)

My tactic is to basically start out with very small words 2-3 letters, attaching plurals as I see them, make sure all they are all out of the way (important for later, because otherwise "Inspiration" will find these small words instead, which is counter-productive) This takes about 30 seconds in total. Then search for extended words (and variations of them) for an extra 40 seconds until after I pass the minute mark and start running out of ideas with around 50 seconds left on the clock. Now I start using "Inspiration" and getting all the trees that extend from it, it can be very advantageous if you already rooted out all the smaller words.

This brings you to around 10 seconds left on the clock, I like to use freeze around now, and either root out any more words if I still have ideas, or what I sometimes do if I'm completely blank, spam the crap out of my touch screen, and just scribble. You *will* get words from this method haha, it really does work.. You can choose to do this after the unfreeze as well. (Note: don't worry if you completely forget to use "Freeze" by accident. The ability will still start up as soon as you reach :01 left on the clock :)

All in all, great little game, especially for free. Let's hope it doesn't eat up too much of my time!