Game Review

Concept:

Players place letters on the board to form words. New words must interconnect with the previously placed words as in a crossword puzzle.

Gameplay:

To begin, players draw a single letter from the letter pool: the player who draws the letter with the highest point value begins play.

Players draw seven letters each. The player who starts must place a word of at least four letters in the center of the board (horizontally or vertically.) After placing his/her word, the player draws replacement letters from the pool. The player scores the points for each letter, plus any points based on the placement on the board (double word score, double letter score, etc.)

The next player must place letters for their word using at least one letter that has been already placed on the board. If the new word placed touches any other words on the board, all touching letters must also form a word. Points are tallied after each word is placed -- for every word formed. Again, the player draws replacement letters after completing their word.

If a player can place all seven letters in one word, they receive an additional 50 point bonus.

The game ends when no letters remain to be drawn, and a player places his/her last letter -- or no player can place any of their remaining letters.

Winning Conditions:

• The player who has the most points at the end of the game wins.

Our Opinion:

This is another classic game. It has been around for over 50 years, and remains playable. It is a game that best suits people who like word games like Boggle or Huggermugger.

The Baroness loves Scrabble. The most challenging part of the game is finding a good placement for the words that you make. She is exceptionally good at placing her words on the board. She likes the quiet, cerebral style of play and the fact that you can have a reasonable conversation with your opponent(s) while playing. There isn't much competitive animosity during this game -- most of the time, your brain is overly taxed trying to find a word that you can maximize the points value when you place it.

Competitive Scrabble players MUST have a dictionary on hand, and must have a good vocabulary. Our least favorite Scrabble games revolve around finding a word in a dictionary -- but in this game, the dictionary is a neccessary evil.

This is a good, quiet family game that can be played over and over -- the gameplay virtually never duplicates itself.

Where to buy:

Any local toy store -- Our copy was from a Target and cost about $10.