Snap Attack Guide iPhone and Android
Wordament Snap Attack is a constant word building tournament that runs 24 hours a day. In each 2 1/2-minute round, you compete with thousands of other online players trying for the best score using the exact same board and rack of playable tiles. How you play and the words you find are up to you!
Object
Achieve the highest score at the end of each 2 1/2-minute game round. In Snap Attack, you score points by building Snaps on the game board. Snaps are made by building words with the colored movable tiles that connect to the fixed black tiles on the game board. Snaps must form valid words from left to right and or top to bottom. The more tiles a Snap includes, the more points it’s worth.
Gameplay
Each full game of Snap Attack is broken into three phases: a 2 1/2-minute game playing phase, a 30-second individual results review phase, and a 20-second real-time leaderboard phase. Because Snap Attack is a constant word tournament, when you start a new game playing session, you will join Snap Attack “in progress”. This means you can enter during any of these three phases. This happens because everyone, everywhere playing Snap Attack is playing the exact same game at the exact same time. If you jump in mid-game, don’t worry — just treat it like a warm up and practice until the next full round begins.
Game Playing Phase
The most active phase of the game is the 2 1/2-minute game playing phase.
At the top of the screen, you will find your score and Snap count, as well as the amount of time left in the round. The game board, located in the center of the screen, always comes with one or more words on the board, these tiles are black. Black tiles contribute to your score, but cannot be moved. They are fixed throughout the entire round.
Below the game board is your rack, which contains seven colored, moveable tiles. These are your tiles. Every word that you build will contain one or more these colored tiles.
Below the game board is a ticker of the last couple Snaps that you have played. There is also a button to shuffle the rack and recall tiles from the game board back to the rack.
Building words
There are two kinds of Snaps: Single-Snaps and Multi-Snaps, depending on whether your play contains one word (a Single-Snap) or two or more words (a Multi-Snap). Every unique Snap is scored, and you earn points by trying to build as many Snaps as possible.
To create a Snap, drag tiles from your rack to empty spaces on the board that are adjacent to one or more, black, fixed tiles. Every time you move a tile the board is evaluated automatically for new Snaps. Every valid Snap you make will earn score instantly and you can move on to building your next Snap immediately. You may reuse your tiles to build many Snaps, so don’t worry about the fact that a tile was already used. To get high scores you will need to move your tiles around often each round.
Examples:
Single-Snap
Multi-Snap
Building the same word in multiple places
Each Snap can only be scored once. A Snap is a combination of tiles, both colored and black that creates one or more words at a particular position on the game board. This means that if the word “DOWN” can be played in multiple places on the board, each instance will earn score. If you ever place the same tiles in the same places twice (thus rebuilding a Snap that you’ve already scored, it will flash yellow—meaning “already found” and will not be scored a second time).
Bonus tiles
Snap Attack features a small collection of bonus tiles: 2X letter score, 3X letter score, 2X word score, and 3X word score. Placing your colored tiles on these spaces will adjust the scoring of your Snap for even greater value. Use the bonus tiles as often as possible to maximize your score.
Scoring
Each Snap is scored through a series of rules. At its core, a Snap consists of a collection of valid words built on the board out of a collection of one or more of your colored tiles and one or more of the fixed, black tiles.
Scoring a word within a Snap
Each word is scored by taking each letter’s value and multiplying it by any letter score bonus tiles. Then, the word’s score is multiplied by any word score bonus tiles and a tile count multiplier. This means that long words can be worth a lot of points, even if you can’t use any bonus tiles.
The value of each word is then added together and an additional bonus is applied for each word in a multi-Snap. For each additional word in a Snap, you gain a 10% bonus to the final Snap’s score.
Bingos
Occasionally, you’ll be able to use all seven of your colored tiles plus one of the fixed, black tiles to build a single horizontal Snap. This play is called a Bingo and is worth 300 points! To make it easier, we title every such board as “Long Word” — so look for those great plays! If you find one, the play will reward with a colorful explosion of particles.
Circle-7s – ⑦
Using all of your tiles in a single Snap is a difficult but fun challenge, and Snap Attack acknowledges each instance by marking your play with a colored “circle 7” icon. Circle sevens come in either white or gold colors. A gold circle seven is one of the top plays on the board using all seven tiles. Gold circle sevens are some of the highest point plays, so finding them is key to getting a great score and winning the round.
Time’s up
At the conclusion of the 2 1/2-minute game playing phase, the screen will show “Time’s up” and the screen will transition to an individual results review phase that lasts about 30 seconds. During this time services are tallying all of the results from all players in that round and getting ready for the next round. A recap of the board you just played is shown, with lists showing every Snap you found as well as the top single and multi-Snaps that were possible. You can tap on any of the Snaps listed to see where it was possible play on the board.
Real-time game results
At the conclusion of the individual results review, the screen will automatically transition to a real-time game results review phase. Here you will get to see a list of other players that participated in that round with you. The lists are broken into: your frenemies, the top players, and a list of player’s near your rank. You can tap on any player’s name to highlight and follow them as a frenemy. Frenemies are players that you can watch round-over-round regardless of how well you do compared with them. This is a great way to follow players that typically score near you, to see if “who’s getting better” over time.
Strategies for winning
Snap Attack is an exciting new entry into the digital board game genre. Like Wordament, which preceded this game, evolving the game play, game boards, and game play strategies over time. But, as you get started, here’s some sure fire ways to attack each new board.
Get oriented
Each board comes with a unique set of initial words and rack. Take a minute to look at the board and make a plan for where you want to start. This could be either seeing a long starting word in your rack that you could play, or finding a way to build words to the bonus tiles to maximize points.
Make LOTS of Snaps
A good round will have you moving tiles constantly. Look for ways to make lots of word variations by just changing one or two tiles in an existing Snap. For example, if you have CAR on the board, can you add an S to make CARS? How about changing the S to a T and making CART. Then, change the T with the R to make CAT. Keeping switching and swapping to make CATS, and CAST. Each one of these little changes make a brand new Snap that earns points.
Know your two-letter words
One of the keys to word building is knowing how to add on to the initial fixed, black tiles. Every Snap must attach to at least one black tile. So, learning how to connect often amounts to finding good two-letter plays. The good news is: there’s no friction to trying out tile permutations. Is there an S on the board? What fits next to that? SA? No. SE? No. SH? Yes. SI? Yes. Keep trying and you will find lots of small two letter words that can add value to an existing, larger Snaps.
Long words = lots of points
Long words get bonus multipliers for each additional tile used in a single word. The longer the word, the more its worth.
Use those bonus tiles
2x and 3x word bonus tiles add on to all of the other scoring mechanics to make your scores swell really fast. Finding ways to put a high value letters on 2x and 3x letter bonuses is also a great strategy. And, once you find a way to place a high value letter, be sure to make lots of Snaps off of that Snap by making small changes like those listed in the Make LOTS of Snaps suggestion above.
Extend a board word for a big bonus
Most people know that you can extend a board word with an S, making SHUFFLE into SHUFFLES. But, look closely for other ways to extend: Add a P to IRATE to make PIRATE, or an EN to DANGER to make ENDANGER. The fewer tiles you need to use in order to extend the play, the more you have left to make multi-Snaps with.
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