Snap Attack players simultaneously compete to get as many points as possible. The game is similar to the Scrabble board game where a board is given with fixed words and bonus tiles (letter and word multipliers) on the board, and seven movable tiles with letters on the "rack". Snap Attack's board is 8×7 squares, smaller than a traditional Scrabble board. Points are earned by making "Snaps" - valid combinations of letters that form a word or words with the ones already found on the board. "Single-Snaps" are linear combinations of letters that form one word, while "Multi-Snaps" are combinations that form two
Words with Friends turn with the "pass" feature, swap out one or more tiles and forfeit the current turn with the "swap" feature, or look up what tiles remain with the "tile bag" feature. The "word strength" feature can be turned on or off, and enables players to see how strong their placed word is relative to all other word combinations available on the current board. In 2016, Zynga (temporarily) removed a feature called "hindsight" whereby a player was able to pay for the opportunity to see what the highest-scoring moves on the board were after the play was made, but has since