Scrabble around for a better word game... but you won't find one!
Written: Mar 29 '08 (Updated Mar 29 '08)
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Pros: Challenging, easy to set up / put away, great fun...
Cons: ... not for those vocabularically-challenged (unless they're willing to learn!)
The Bottom Line: If you love words, you'll love Scrabble...
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| captaind's Full Review: Scrabble |
In terms of games that lexophiles love, surely there will never be anything that can challenge the popularity of Scrabble. It’s been around for decades and has several new versions, including those with bigger boards and / or more tiles, but I’ve only played the original (produced by Mattel) and find it hard to believe that it could really be bettered (though I can see the attraction of having a longer playing-time as offered by the set with twice the playing pieces).
The game is played on a board that is divided into squares, and each player gets an initial set of tiles, each with a letter on it. The object of the game is to score points by making words with your available letters either diagonally or horizontally on the board. Each letter has a points value; letters such as E, S, T etc that are frequently used in words will only have a single point, while those seldom found in common words such a J, X and Q have the highest points value. Other letters come in between the two extremes. When you have formed a legitimate word, you get the total of points from the letters used. Each new word has to include at some point a letter / letters that are already on the board. There’s much more to it than that of course - there are various “premium” squares where letters or words can gain double or triple points if it’s covered with the new word formed, and by clever placement you can form new words from existing words as well. You replace used tiles from your set from the bag (without looking!). You play until there are no more tiles left in the bag and no more words can be formed. This is only a brief explanation of the game and it can become quite a complicated procedure to work out how to maximise your scoring potential while keeping an eye on future opportunities. In my experience (as someone who won more often than not! :-D) the real key to the game is making the best possible use of the premium squares and forming several words with a single letter. You can challenge a word if you think someone’s made something up, but obviously you’ll have to have an agreed dictionary handy or you could be arguing about it all night!
There is a certain amount of randomness to the game, but I would say that skill accounts for about 80% of your chances of winning - the letters you have and the options available to you change but what you do with them is down to you. Because of the inherent randomness however it does mean that each game is entirely different (though the same words may well pop up quite frequently), which means that you can never really get to a stage where the game seems old. The manual in the game has a lot of useful information, including background history of the game, game rules (there are several variants that are generally recognised, but all follow basically the pattern I described above), and an extremely useful list of 2-letter words (these are really vital, particularly when you are near the end of the game!). If you buy the game second-hand and don’t; have the manual, check out this list at http://www.yak.net/kablooey/scrabble/2letterwords.html - I guarantee that there’ll be words you’ve never heard of!
It’s a very challenging game and best suited to those who have at least a relatively large vocabulary. As I love the English language and like unusual words it’s well-suited to me. You’ll know if this applies to you… I suspect that it would be a very frustrating game for those with a limited vocabulary. It’s not all about language though because a lot of strategy and planning goes into a successful game. We found that the games tended to take about 45 minutes, give or take about 15 minutes. (This was playing with 4 players). It doesn’t take a long time to set up or put away, which is always a plus point when it comes to board games. I thoroughly enjoyed every game. It’s mooted as a game for 2-4 players though with a bit of ingenuity you could probably manage to have more players than that. In a 2-player game you do really need to have someone who is fairly well matched to you in terms of playing ability.
It is also necessary to get some rules sorted out before you start playing if possible, as even given the different rules suggested in the manual, you will probably have some “local” rules. (For instance, we played until the last person used their last tile if possible, which isn’t quite how the official rules suggest doing it! We helped each other at this stage which was a bit strange after the cut-throat competition of the rest of the game, but then we are a bit odd…) Are you going to allow American spellings, for instance? (Or for Americans, are you going to allow English spellings?!?) Whoever keeps the score should be reasonably good at mathematics too… I’ve seen some very dubious scores being put on by other people at times!
Overall Scrabble is one of the all-time classic word games and board games, which has that special quality of never aging. It’s myriad different editions, popularity as an online game (I’ve played the Yahoo version which is a lot of fun and not too slow), world championships and suchlike stand as testament to its enduring quality. Nothing beats getting a few insane (but learned) friends over and playing the “hardcopy” game though. The original game will cost you about £13 /$25 new, and is well worth it. Special editions are going to be more, of course. Those visually impaired will be glad to know that there is a large-print version available too (only found this out when looking up the price of the game on Amazon!).
For those who love trivia, Scrabble is apparently sold in 121 countries in 29 different language versions. One hundred million sets have been sold worldwide, and sets are found in one out of every three American homes. Fancy that! I wonder how many get used though?
If you like word games and are one of the (allegedly) 2 out of 3 Americans who don’t have Scrabble already (or anyone else for that matter)… why not?! It’s a great game, it’s timeless, and it’s not fussy to set up and put away. The manufacturers recommend a minimum age of ten, but you’ll be the best person to assess your own child’s language ability (of his / her likely opponents!). I know some quite young kids who love the game, so don’t think that anyone is necessarily “too young” for this game.
So there you have it. Definitely a 5-star game, but if it won’t be your cup of tea (or whatever the equivalent expression is in the States), you’ll already know by now.
The fun doesn't end when you finish the game either - perhaps because we're mad, or maybe we're normal and everyone else in the world is mad, we create a short impromtu story including every word that's on the scrabble board at the end. I enjoy doing that almost more than playing the game itself!!
Yes, okay... I am mad...
Other Board Game Reviews
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Monopoly
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 25
Type of Toy: Board Game
Age Range of Child: Whole Family
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