As you'd expect from a Brichter-built app, Letterpress is beautifully designed, with a sparse, minimalist appearance. It's a two-player game; you can create games with random opponents, or play against your Game Center friends.

Because the game's approach is unique--sort of a clever mashup of and --it takes some time to explain (and master) the rules. Once you get them down, though, Letterpress is alarmingly addictive.

At the start of a game, you're presented with a five-by-five grid of assorted letters. On your turn, you can use any of the letters to build a word. The letter tiles needn't be adjacent; you can tap from anywhere. After you submit your word, the tiles you used turn blue. Then it's your opponent's turn to make a word. The tiles he or she uses to spell a word turn pink.

You can't reuse words that have already been played. If you play "escapes," your opponent can't play "escape," either; words that exist as prefixes of previously played words are rejected.

When it's your turn to build a word again, you can use tiles you've already turned blue, use unclaimed white tiles, or use the pink-colored tiles that your opponent played. As you play, then, some tiles will go from blue to pink to blue again, if you and your opponent keep spelling words with the same letters.