App Review: Ruzzle

For today's post, I'm going to be reviewing the popular game called Ruzzle, available on Android and iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch. This fast-paced and addicting word game is similar to Boggle, as you play by trying to find as many words as you can on a 4x4 grid. Each game consists of three two-minute rounds where players try to score as many points as possible, and the winner is whoever gets the most points by the end of all three rounds. 

Ruzzle's Login Screen

After downloading Ruzzle, you can choose to register for an account either with a username and a password or to sign in using your Facebook account. If you create an account with a username and password, you can connect to Facebook later so that you can play with your Facebook friends. 

Once you've logged in, you will see a list of games where it is your turn to play (under the "Start New Game" button), an overview of how many achievement's you've earned, and a list of games where it is your opponent's move. Underneath this, you will also see a list of the outcomes of past games (not pictured in screenshot).

 By pressing the orange "Start a new game" button, you will be able to begin playing. You can choose to play by entering someone's username (first option) against your Facebook friends or Twitter followers, or a random opponent. There is also a practice mode, if you want to try the game without any opponents.

When it's your turn to play a round, you will see a screen similar to this when you start to play. Here, it's my turn on the third round, and you can see both my score and my opponent's for each round as well as the score for each of us on the bottom. Your opponent's score for any round will remain hidden until both of you have played in that round. From here, you can choose to either play the next round, resign, or chat with your opponent by tapping the speech bubble in the top right.

Now game-play begins! You have two minutes to find as many words as you can and get the highest score possible. Select words by tapping the first letter and then dragging over the other letters in the word, releasing over the final letter. Letters in each word must be adjacent (that is, touching on any side or diagonal), and each letter can only be used once per word. Here I drew lines illustrating the path to play the word "Note" in this game.

The Ruzzle board when play begins.
The timer is at the upper left, and your score is  top-center.

Lines showing the path to play the word "Note"

Once the round is over, you will see the number of words you played along with their point score. If your opponent has already played that round, you will also see a list of all the words they found that round. Any word in grey is a word that only one player found. When you press "Done" you'll see the score screen again, and if it's the end of Round 3, whether you've won or lost.

List of words found by each player,starting with the highest-scoring.

The final score of a game, with the option
to challenge your opponent to a rematch.

In Ruzzle, it is important to remember that its the amount of points scored that determine the winner, not the amount of words. So your strategy could be to find as many words as quickly as possible, or to try and find longer, more valuable words. Also lookout for the letter tiles with double or triple letter scores ("DL" or "TL") and tiles which double or triple your word score ("DW" and "TW"). The amount of these tiles increases which each round, so generally you'll earn more points per round as the game progresses.

Some other areas of Ruzzle worth checking out could be the Settings and Help window where you can adjust different settings, go over the tutorial, or upgrade to the premium version of the game if you have the free version; the Account Settings window where you can adjust your account information or the image used as your Ruzzle profile picture (this is the "Account Settings" button under Settings and Help; and the Achievements window, where you can see both the achievements you've unlocked as well as how to unlock the ones you haven't.

 Overall, Ruzzle is an addictive app worth downloading. You can download it for free or purchase the premium version which will remove ads and give you access to your Ruzzle statistics. Given its current popularity, you will find no shortage of opponents to play against and the short, two-minute rounds are perfect for those moments where you need a quick break. Hope you've enjoyed this review of the game!

Download Ruzzle: 
Android: Free Version | Premium Version ($1.99)
iOS: Free Version (Premium version can be bought in the app for $2.99)