I have long dreamed of a better world: one where I would unlock my phone to find a notification that my grandma has challenged me to a game of Scrabble. I would play my word. She would play hers. We would play back and forth over a few days, and the entire time, neither of us would have to see any overwhelming technicolor ads with deceptive skip buttons that blast us with even more pop-ups. It’s a simple life.
You would think such an app already existed. You would be wrong. Until now. (Zynga, I will never forgive you for what you’ve done to Words with Friends).
At last, New York Times Games has brought my humble dreams to life with a Scrabble-like multiplayer app called Crossplay, available now on iOS and Android.
Crossplay is not a Scrabble clone exactly, but unless you are the type of Scrabble lover that goes to tournaments or memorizes the Scrabble dictionary, it’s basically Scrabble. The game board and tile distribution are a bit different, and there’s a slight rule change around what happens once the bag runs out of tiles. Those differences may have been done for legal reasons. As a casual player, I barely noticed them.
Like other social word games, Crossplay allows you to invite friends to play, or you can get matched with strangers near your skill level. For New York Times Games subscribers, the game will have no ads at all, but free users might see some banner ads. Still, it beats paying $10 a month to remove ads from Words With Friends, yet still have to deal with a cartoon-like interface among other features that annoy me.
Behold: one game that looks normal, and one that looks like Cocomelon for adults.Image Credits:Cros …