Like Scrabble? Fancy a fun variation? Try Speed Scrabble!
Written: Oct 08 '00 (Updated Nov 30 '03)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: More exciting than the regular game!
Cons: Some people find it too fast & confusing - more for adults that kids.
The Bottom Line: Give it a try - you'll be glad you did!
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| _Cassandra_'s Full Review: Scrabble |
If you enjoy the mental challenge of Scrabble but sometimes find the games take too long or lack the action of competitive card games like snap and cheat… you may enjoy the alternative use of Scrabble tiles in the fun game of Speed Scrabble. Speed Scrabble brings a different dimension to the rather sedate board game, and makes it possible for larger groups to play - ideal for parties and get togethers with the hip and groovy intelligentsia.
To begin with throw away the Scrabble board (or just set it aside so you can use it again to play regular Scrabble if you find the pace too blistering). You'll need a larger surface area than you do with Scrabble, so a good big solid table is the best bet here. You can play with any number of people from two upwards, as long as you can all fit around the table. Make sure you've all gone to the toilet and got your cups of tea and biscuits handy before you start the game, as the action gets hectic pretty quick!
Setting Up.
You need all the tiles except the blanks, so take them out and set them aside. If you have two sets of tiles and a large group playing, combine them for a longer and more exciting game. Place all the tiles in the center of the table, face down, and within reach of everyone. You then need to decide who plays first - everyone playing picks a tile, and the closest to the beginning of the alphabet takes first turn, with subsequent turns clockwise or anti-clockwise from there, however you prefer.
Object of the Game.
The object of Speed Scrabble is to amass words from tiles that are turned over in the center of the table, and also to make words scavenged and rearranged from the words of your fellow players. The person with the highest total letter scores from completed words wins the game.
Playing the game.
Each player flips over one tile per turn(keeping them in place where they lie on the table), until it is possible to form a word of three letters or more from the letters that have been turned over. Two letter words are not permitted. When you can see a legal scrabble word that can be formed from tiles which have been turned over, call it out loud! The pressure to be the first to call a word can be very intense and gives the game a real competitive edge which regular Scrabble can't match. The first person to call a word then takes the tiles that make up the word and form the word in front of them, and they play the next turn, regardless of who played last. Sometimes two people call a word almost simultaneously, and in such cases you must call a tiebreaker, using the simple game of "Scissors, Paper, Rock" to break the tie and award the word to one player --this method is great because if you have more than two calls of a word you can still break a tie quickly and easily.
Progressing and Skills.
Now, the basics are as described above. As the game progresses, some tiles may be left on the board for a long time, much like it can take a long time to get rid of the Q's and X's in regular Scrabble. But in this game everyone has equal chance of finding a word on the table. You may also find a situation where there are mostly only vowels or consonants being turned over. The equilibrium eventually balances however, and the best thing is mental agility and pure speed play a great part in this game. You have to be able to recognise words quickly to succeed at Speed Scrabble.
More gameplay and strategy .
The other major game play element is the act of "stealing" words from your fellow players. This makes the game a lot more challenging. Not only can you form words from the tiles in the middle, but you can also rearrange, combine or add to words that have already been made by other players. You may add to an already formed word with tiles which have been turned over and not yet formed words, rearrange the letters any way you like in an existing word which has not been called yet, or combine two already formed words to make a new one. Usually you will just add one or two letters from those being turned over, such as pluralizing: pot to pots for example. But you can also rearrange the word, in this example it could become stop or tops as well. This is a very important point of the game: if you make a word which can be easily rearranged, call out all the words you can see could be made from those letters: this aspect of the game is like Boggle, only you have to say the words out loud. Many a word is stolen just by rearranging the letters in a legal combination that the calling player hadn't thought of.
That is pretty much it I think: just keeping playing rounds until all the tiles are turned over and as many made into words as possible. Quite often there are a few left over: these don't penalise anyone and aren't counted in final scores. Though when we play, we tend not to keep score: the game play itself is so much fun we don't really care who wins!
I have found this Epinion to be extremely difficult to write: much harder than a regular review! If anyone is already aware of this particular game variation of Scrabble, please let me know if it is common in the USA. If not, give it a try yourself and see if you like it. I don't know if I've explained this clearly enough: if there are any questions or obvious confusing parts, please comment and I'll try to reword the review.
I'd love for many people to give this game a try. I've found some of my friends have not been able to get into it, but others just love it! Some people take some time to get the hang of it, others instantly play like pros. Speed Scrabble appeals more to the particularly agile thinker, and I'd like to think there's a lot of us here at Epinions who are that.
To conclude my review, I love getting together with my friends to play this game and make a night of it, or just playing a quick round or two when time is short. It is a refreshing mental floss kind of game and gets your brain running a bit faster. And it's a bucket of fun. Give it a try and let me know what you think!
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
_Cassandra_
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Location: Perth, Western Australia
Reviews written: 35
Trusted by: 30 members
About Me:
Designer and Filmmaker - and an artist in many guises.
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