I've heard about upwords, but have no idea what that one's about.
OOOOOOOOO, Upwords! My favorite game! This one is played similarly to Scrabble, but is a great equalizer for those vocabulary challenged folks! You use common words as your base like in Scrabble, crossing words here and there, earning points for each letter used. BUT, you can also build up on the words. For example: you have the word "dog" (which earns 6 points--2 points per letter when the word is one layer high). Next someone puts an "l" on the "d" and forms the word "log"(which now scores only 4 points--1 point per letter when the word is more than one layer). The next player puts an "r" on the "l" and an "f" in front of the word, which forms the word "frog". This is now worth 6 points again--6 letters in the stack of letters forming the word. To add to this, there may be another word that crosses and is affected by the changes, and you get the points for that word as well.
The main thing is, you need to use common, fairly short (5 letters or less) words, and build up! Very good for families when the kids are learning words. They have an equal chance of coming up with good words. I bought this one when my children were young, and we still love it today.
