Word Streak with Friends Instant Games Review

The year was 1972 when a word game that later became a big hit and a timeless classic was released. It was called “Boggle” and it quickly became a favorite among many kids (and even adults) who grew up during the time when computer and video games were not yet a fixture in every home.

A testament to the enduring appeal of Boggle’s game format is the current popularity that ‘Word Streak with Friends,’ a digital reincarnation of the original word-finding game, and one of the titles available on Facebook Messenger’s Instant Games platform.

There were two word games that were among the 17 titles launched with the Instant Games, but Word Streak with Friends was not one of them. Despite this fact, Word Streak currently enjoys the distinction of being the most played word game on Messenger.

It’s the first word game we’re reviewing here on fbmessengergames.com, and we daresay it will set the bar on all the word games we will review in the future.

Game Play

This game is as addictive as word games could get. The only other word games that have ever gotten us this engrossed were probably Text Twist and Wordament.

In Word Streak with Friends, letters are randomly arranged on a 4×4 grid and are players have to connect them to form words by swiping on adjacent tiles vertically, horizontally, or diagonally. Letters have different values, with rare ones giving higher points, similar to Scrabble.

Forming high-scoring words activates tiles with multipliers, such as double letter or triple word multipliers. The higher the levels you reach, the better multipliers you also get.

At the start of the game, you are given only 40 seconds to rack up points, but a game could potentially last for several minutes. This is because forming high-scoring words could also add a few seconds to your timer.

A bar gets filled up with every point you score, and you reach the next level once the bar gets full. With every 4 levels you finish, you get a new set of tiles. Filling up the bar gets harder and harder with each new set.

When you run out of time, you are given a choice to quit the game, or to use one of your lives to keep on playing to reach an even higher score. You may only use up to 3 lives per game.

Your lives are not unlimited either, and you can only collect 1 life per day.

Graphics and Sound

The game has a very straightforward graphic design and animation, no snazzy motifs, but not boringly plain either.

However, they almost went a bit overboard with the sounds, with a man’s voice screaming “Excellent!” or “Genius!” at you. It was fine at first, when it made you feel some gratification for how smart you are for spotting that big word, but it got a bit annoying later on. You may want to turn down the volume a bit on this game.

Fun Factor and Replayability

This is an ultimate word game, and lovers of this genre will be lying when they say otherwise. We’d play this game even if we didn’t have to compete with anyone, but of course outscoring your friends makes it even more enjoyable.

Conclusion

This new take on the classic Boggle game is already loved by millions of fans on Android, iOS and other platforms where it had already been introduced. Its inclusion on Facebook Instant Games will please its loyal followers, and will win many users who are not.

Our main gripe here is the combo system, which rewards extra seconds or multipliers when certain words are formed; we haven’t yet fully understood how the system works. Also, we think it would be nice if it had some of Wordament’s features, like letting us know if we got some unusual words, or allowing the player to rotate the tiles to get a different perspective.

But those not a deal-breakers for us. We liked playing this game, period. We give it a 9/10.