WordsWorth ($1.99)

Being writers ourselves, we love a good word game, and one of our favorites so far is WordsWorth. You form words by tapping letters on the screen. Longer words using rarer letters (such as J, Z, and Qu, for example) score more points than shorter words with more common letters.

To make things interesting, the app includes certain special tiles, such as blue wild cards, green bonuses, and red timers, all shown in Figure 18-6. A gold tile (see Figure 18-7) helps you grow your score. The timer tiles are the most insidious; if their time runs out before you’ve used the letter, the game is over.

WordsWorth doesn’t have a fixed time limit per game. Instead, it’s level-based — each time you achieve the prescribed number of points, you advance to the next level. And, of course, the levels grow increasingly harder with more and rarer timed tiles, fewer vowels, and rarer consonants.

If you can’t find any more words on the screen, you can shuffle the tiles by shaking your iPhone. But be careful: A limited number of shuffles are available for each level.

Although WordsWorth is simple, it’s also engaging and addictive. And you can even compete against other players over Bluetooth or Wi-Fi, or challenge your friends on the Facebook social network.

Lots of terrific word-based games are available for the iPhone. Another favorite worth checking out is a Boggle-like game called Wurdle from Semi Secret Software, which will also set you back only $1.99.