Scrabulous reborn as Wordscraper

Wordscraper uses circular instead of square tiles

Scrabulous has returned with a new name, new rules and a new look, much to the delight of Facebook users in the US and Canada.

The developers of the word game removed Scrabulous from the social networking site on Tuesday following threats of legal action from Scrabble-owner Hasbro.

Fans of the game, which is often played by more than half a million users a day, have campaigned in favour of the popular application ever since Hasbro announced its intention to sue the Calcutta-based developers of Scrabulous back in January.

In a bid to avoid legal action the developers of the game, the Agarwalla brothers, have tweaked their application and relaunched it under the name of Wordscraper.

Changes include circular instead of square tiles, a rearrangement of double and triple point squares and the addition of quadruple points.

It now remains to be seen whether the changes are sufficient to defend claims that the game no longer infringes the Hasbro copyright and trademark.

In a statement, Hasbro said that it will "evaluate every situation individually and take actions as appropriate".

Scrabulous continues to be available to UK users who also have access to Wordscraper.

However, its future remains uncertain as Mattel, which owns the rights to Scrabble in the UK, has also launched a legal action against the developers of Scrabulous.