Hanging with Friends (review)

Hanging with Friends (2011). iPhone version reviewed. ★★★★ 4/5.

I’d never been a devotee of the …with Friends series before: Words with Friends stopped being cool long before I got my first iPhone in October 2010, and I prefer go to chess, so Chess with Friends was out.

But hangman… There’s a game everyone can relate to, right? Hanging with Friends is a new, networked take on the childhood favorite from social gaming giants Zynga. It’s easy to get into, and fun to play.

There’s a twist on the old formula here: you have to make the words for your opponent using a set of Scrabble-like tiles dished out to you each round. It’s unlikely you’ll get to flummox your opponent with rutherfordium or pavonine, unless you’re exceptionally lucky. You’ll also find that you’re often unable to make words that need more than one of a particular vowel, as the chances of getting multiples are slim.

Like Scrabble, points are awarded, when creating words, for using less-common letters like X, Q, and Z, and you can get double letter scores or triple word scores if you hit the appropriate tile (here randomly placed, one per word created). Points go towards earning coins that can be used in an in-game store, but at the time of writing that store isn’t operational yet. Clever players will realize that since their opponent has an incentive to place Xs and so on, that there’s a better than usual chance of them appearing: so when guessing, don’t just stick to the common letters.

Players face off and take turns to guess each others’ words. Avatars float above a pit of lava, held up by five balloons, one of which bursts for every word not guessed before you’re out of chances. Once all your balloons are gone, the match is over.

As I write this, Hanging with Friends is still iPhone game of the week on the iTunes store, but as yet, only a few of my friends have the game. What’s more, I work in publishing and write fiction in my spare time, I’m known as something of a wordsmith, so my Chinese housemate refuses to play with me. Fortunately, initiating a game with a stranger is easy, and finding a match is quick. I’ve heard that some players are substandard and will quit matches after a loss. However, the players I’ve encountered have been relatively good at word formation and guessing, creating matches that lasted over ten rounds. Victory tended to come through forming words that were hard to guess: I found hazy was a reliable winner, and pulling it out now feels like a cheap trick.

This leads to the only major criticism I have of Hanging with Friends: it seems too hard to lose a balloon, and you have too many to lose before the match is over. I’d like to see slightly less chances to guess a word before a loss, and only three balloons per contestant, possibly with some handicap options based on rankings (although no rankings are currently implemented).

But despite its few failings Hanging with Friends is a solid, simple retake on an old childhood favorite, and with the right opponent makes for an engaging social gaming experience.