'Word Ace' – Texas Hold'em Meets Scrabble and It's Free
posted September 4th, 2009 1:28 AM EDT by arn in Free, Word, iPhone games, iPod touch games
Self Aware Games recently released their free online multiplayer word game Word Ace [Free] into the App Store.
For those familiar withe Texas Hold'em Poker, the game carries the same basic structure with 5 community cards and 2 hole cards, but instead of traditional playing cards, you get dealt letters. Using the letters you have in your hand combined with the community cards, you try to form your highest scoring word. Like Hold'em, each round involves betting based on the strength of your hand or if you think you can just bluff someone off their hand. It's a nice concept and works out quite well.
The game is available for both the Palm Pre and iPhone/iPod Touch with the ability to play against others across platforms.
The developer video is being demoed on a Palm Pre, but the iPhone version plays the same:
Tournament game structure is said to be in the works as well as a Pro version that is meant to help support the developers. Self Aware has said that the free version remains fully featured:
The main thing, though, is that the game's free. Word Ace has ALL the content of Word Ace Pro EXCEPT In-App purchases, which are forbidden by Apple for free apps. WAP is for you if you want more chips, or if you simply want to help support the game's continued development! But if you don't want to pay, Word Ace (the free version) is a complete game, and you can play as much as you like.
Our forum thread has ongoing discussion with developer participation.
App Store Link: Word Ace, Free
I hate the word games because the're such an easy way around cheating. Sit down with your lappy and your iphone and play. Use a word search website or something where you can input the words and it gives you all the words you can spell with the letters you have and the game becomes totally unbalanced. As much as I would love to play, I have a feeling there would be a dichotomy between the people that cheat and those that don't.
This is true for almost every board game like chess or checkers. Sure people cheat, but who cares.
Then don't play. The rest of us will "risk" it.
I think the cross-platform thing is neat! I hope more games (like the upcoming Monster Ball) support multiple platforms like this.
Hey! Thats not an iPhone!
That is a fantastic idea. It's like mixing chocolate and peanut butter. 1 + 1 = 3.1415926535
I'm surprised at the lack of lewd usernames, comments, and pictures. Glad, but surprised. It's a fun free game. I'll be buying the WAP soon to thank them!
So multiplayer only, then?
You can play Practice Mode against bots. You can't save your progress (in terms of money won) as when you restart Practice Mode you go back to the buy-in amount. The multiplayer does keep track of your winnings in Profile but you also enter at buy-in amounts. It's probably better that way so you can't sit around the $400 tables with $20,000 every day (unless you earn it!). They're opening higher buy-in tables soon.