Haste for iPhone is like QuizUp meets Boggle

With games such as QuizUp seemingly killing it in the popularity stakes, it’s no surprise that we now see a steady slew of similar-ish games hit the market.

Haste is the latest fast-paced, friends vs. friends-style game to hit the App Store, and it certainly lends more than a nod to the aforementioned QuizUp, “they were quite an inspiration for us,” explains co-creator Lockie Potts. But Haste is different – it’s a word game built around real-time, live multiplayer action. It takes the age-old word-search puzzle game ethos, or more specifically Boggle, and gives it the 2014 treatment.

How it works

You can either connect up with Facebook to play friends, or enter as a ‘Guest’ to be matched with a random opponent. It’s a shame you can’t search for players by username to play friends, given that you may wish to bypass Facebook but still play with friends.

Letters connect to make words in any direction with the swipe of a finger, and words can only be played once by a player – once your competitor has found a word, you can’t then choose it too. Each letter has a value, and there’s also bonus tiles that can multiply points. The person with the most points after 90 seconds, wins.

Over time, leaderboards form, statistics give a glimpse into who’s top dog, who’s improving and who, well, isn’t doing so well.

Haste is the handiwork of Exose, a small two-person team based in Canberra, Australia. Sure, the game may share the same basic principle as Boggle, which has a presence on iOS via EA, but with its simple clean interface and lack of bells-and-whistles, it’s easy to see Haste taking off here – it’s been beautifully designed, and is pretty addictive.