Scopely expands Scrabble to the web

Scrabble is back and better than ever. Scopely is launching the Scrabble you know and love online, just in time to celebrate National Scrabble Day, April 13.

The new website and game interface make it very easy to jump straight into a battle of words. With one or two clicks players can launch straight into a match against other players from over 180 countries or compete against the computer. The asynchronous board-and-tile experience is available right away, and there are promises of extra features down the road. High level matches as part of an upcoming ‘Tournaments’ mode are also on the horizon.

Scopely has been expanding its reach to multiple platforms beyond its roots in mobile games, and extending Scrabble to the web is one more move in that direction.

The site also offers a blog and a forum. The blog offers tips, tricks, and resources provided by Scrabble experts. The forum is a safe, moderated place to get into the nitty-gritty with other Scrabble-heads.

In addition to the PVP and PVE gameplay modes the new site offers access to the official ‘Scrabble Dictionary’ of over 4 million words and definitions. It also offers a built-in anagram solver to help deal with a stack of uncooperative letters.

And, look. I know in other tile-based letter games out there the use of anagram solvers isn’t looked fondly on. I get it. The working out of five letter words based on educated guesses and context clues is sacrosanct.

But Scrabble’s a little bit more competitive. It isn’t just making words, it’s preventing your opponent from making their own words. It’s figuring out specific words to place in specific spots to block opponents from making optimal moves.

It’s sneakily spelling out two crappy words so you can drop a ‘qi’ on a triple word score tile. When Scrabble is good, it’s really good.