The Student News Site of Sacramento City College

The Express

The Student News Site of Sacramento City College

The Express

The Student News Site of Sacramento City College

The Express

It’s your move

Attention virtual gamers, habitual readers and Scrabble fanatics: There’s a new reason to stare at your iPhone when you’re supposed to be paying attention to your teachers, friends at the bar or family at the dinner table.

Words With Friends, the Scrabble-like application for the iPhone, is a virtual word game that is one of the next big things in online gaming.

The reality on City College’s campus, however, was a little more relaxed. Of five tables full of people in a crowded quad, only two students knew about Words With Friends.

“It’s really fun, really neat,” says Nick Sanders, a neurobiology, physiology and behavior major at City College. “It’s [played] over time, so it’s not like you have to sit down and do the whole game right there, which makes it a lot more convenient, which is everything about the iPhone.”

Expanding the Scrabble idea to the internet age, game makers at New Toy Inc. designed the application for the iPhone in which players score points by forming words from individual lettered “tiles.” Words are formed on a grid, across and down in crossword puzzle fashion. More points are available than in traditional Scrabble because there are more tiles. You can rematch, and even engage in a little competitive poking at other players.

As Sanders explains, just hit the “chat” tab and tell your buddies, “Good game” or, “Hey, you’re taking forever!”

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The interaction is simple: You spell a word and send it to the person you are playing with. Then that person will then receive an alert message, and the next move is his or hers. Even if three days go by before the player counters your word, the game is still on. Students can play in seconds or spread the game out over the course of the day, making it an easy social activity to squeeze into a busy schedule.

For Sanders and his buddies, Words With Friends serves as a social networking tool with a competitive edge.

Sanders, who is transferring to UC Davis, is also an emergency medical technician. At Community Regional Medical Center in Fresno, where Sanders worked in the trauma room, the game was popular among EMTs and paramedics. It became a momentary escape from the trauma, he says.

Other students see Words With Friends in a similar way. The game provides a moment to forget homework and exams, and pause and play.

“It’s another way to draw our attention away from everything nice outside,” Sanders says. “But I like it.”

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