Site hosted by Angelfire.com: Build your free website today!

Literati Basics

brought to you by your Laddermonkey Literati TD's

Literati is a word game very much like Scrabble.  Up to five players compete by creating words from random letter tiles. The differences between Literati and Scrabble mainly lie in the placement of the extra point tiles and the random letter tiles.

To play, you create words by placing tiles at intersections on the board. Certain spots have special values and can increase a player's score. Scores are totaled off the point values of each letter tile plus any bonuses.   The first player creates a word using the center spot and everyone, in turn, must play off of the tiles on the board to create new words.  The game is over when all the letter tiles are played or no player can spell a valid word with the tiles they have left. The player with the highest score wins the game.


Gameplay

Once the game is started, a random player is selected to go first. Each player starts with 7 letter tiles. A wild tile is a blank and can be played as any letter a player wishes. The player selected to go first must then use the center space on the board and create a word by dragging the tiles from his or her hand and placing them on the board. After the first player has created a word, the turn moves to the next player. From this point, each player must play off of at least one of the tiles already on the board. Players can spell words vertically or horizontally only. To use a wild tile, you must place it on the board and then assign it a letter by clicking on the tile and entering a letter from your keyboard.

Once a player has created a word, it must be submitted by clicking the "submit" button. If the new words are valid then the he or she is awarded points. If one of the new words is invalid, then he or she must try again.

If the "challenge stage" option is enabled, the other players in the game can challenge the word. If no one challenges the word, the player that spelled the word is awarded the points. If a word is challenged, it is looked up in the online dictionary, www.dictionary.com. If the word is in dictionary.com, it is considered valid and the player that initiated the challenge loses his or her next turn. If the word is not in dictionary.com, the player forfeits their turn.

After a player takes a turn, tiles are automatically added from the "stock" to the player's hand so each player always has 7 tiles, unless the stock is empty. The game ends when a player ends his turn with no letters in his hand and there are no letters left to draw from the "stock." The game can also end when each player has passed twice in sequence. (A player would pass when he or she cannot form a word from the tiles in his or her possession.) Another way the game can end is by the timer running out.  Timer running out is an automatic loss.  The winner is the player with the most points (unless timer ran out).

 

Scoring
Scoring is based off the total points each letter is worth, plus any bonuses from placing the word or letter on a special grid intersection. The following chart explains the point value for each letter tile.

points

 

Bonuses
Scoring is based off the total points each letter is worth, plus any bonuses from placing the word or letter on a special spot. The following chart explains the point value for each letter tile.

If any of the letters in your newly formed word are placed on a spot  labeled "2L" or "3L" the point value of that letter is multiplied by 2 or 3. For example, if you spell the word "Dog" and the D was placed on a grid intersection that was labeled "3L", the total for the D tile would be worth 3 points rather than the 1 it is normally worth. Hence the total score for the word "Dog" would be 5 rather than 3.

You can also get a bonus by placing a tile on a spot   labeled "2W" or "3W". These spots increase the total score of the entire word by either 2 or 3, depending one which bonus the tile is placed on.

There is a 35 point bonus for using every letter in your hand, also known as a bingo.

board

Spelling the word Wig would be worth 14 because the W is on a 3L space. This makes the W worth 12 rather than 4.

End Game

Once the game has ended, the sum of the letter values in each player's hand is subtracted from their score. If a player has no letters remaining, the sum of all of the letter values in the other players' hands are added to his or her score. The winner of the game is decided by who has the most points.   However, running out of time, even if you are ahead in points, is an automatic loss.

Improving your Game

You will learn new learns constantly in this game.  Studying and learning new words will definitely help to improve your game.  It is also useful to learn and know two letter words.  Because of their usefulness in hooking to other words and helping to make longer words, knowing certain bizarre and strange 2 letter words is often crucial to the game.  Here is a list of some:

aa  

ab  

ad  

ae  

ag  

ah  

ai  

al  

am  

an  

ar  

as  

at  

aw  

ax ba be bi bo by da de do ed ef eh el em
en er es et ex fa go ha he hi hm ho id if
in is it jo ka la li lo ma me mi mm mo mu
my na ne no nu od oe of oh om on op or os
ow ox oy pa pe pi re sh si so ta ti to uh
um un up us ut we wo xi xu ya ye yo

 

X1View_Lmtd's Top Ten Tips For Playing Literati!
  1. Balancing Your Rack. You should always bear in mind, when playing a word, what letters you have left on your rack - particularly the balance between consonants and vowels. Ideally, you want to try and have 4 consonants and 3 vowels on your rack, so don't always play the highest scoring word (unless its 30+ points), bear in mind what you will need for the next turn, and also look to leave combinations of letters that go together.
  2. Blanks. You always get one of these to start the game, and may pick up 1 or 2 others during the game. Most beginners waste them to make low-scoring words just to get rid of some letters - DON'T DO IT. Only use blanks to make bingos, or to get on the 3W and score 30+ points. If you have rubbish and a blank, pass and change some letters.
  3. Suffixes. There are many combinations of letters to end words which are worth keeping on your rack, its surprising how many words you might make with these, and hopefully some bingos! Here are some: -ING, -TION, -ERS, -ANT, -ELY, -AGE, -INE, -ENT, -ISE and so on - make your own list.
  4. Letter Frequency. The most commonly used letters in the English Language are E, S, T, A, R, I, O, and N. Keeping these, and discarding unhelpful letters like C, U, B, V, M etc will greatly enhance your chances of making good words.
  5. Bingos. This is playing all 7 tiles in one turn, which adds a 35-point bonus to your word score. Unless its the very first turn, you will need a "hook" to fit these in, because they have to join on to something. Keep your eyes open for hooks, this is where the list of 2 letter words above comes in to play, and if your potential bingo contains the letter S, the most likely hook is by pluralising an existing word. Also think about where to play your bingos (if you have a choice of more than one spot) as they can often open up a high scoring 3W chance for your opponent.
  6. 3W Spots. These can also produce high scores, particularly if you can include a high-scoring letter on the 3L spot that is close to the 3W - a V on one of those will give you a 40+ score. Conversely, if you are forced to leave the 3W open for your opponent, try and play onto the nearby 3L so that your opp doesn't get the benefit of 9x that letter score.
  7. 2L and 3L Spots. Sometimes you can score 20+ points just by playing 1 or 2 letters on these. For example, if there is a 3L spot next to an E, and you have Y and A on your rack, you could make "AY" and "YE" with the Y on the 3L, scoring 22 points.
  8. Double 2W Spots. These occur on all 4 sides of the board, and a word placed that spans both will score 4x the letter values. It does, of course, open up the nearby 3W for your opponent, so make sure you leave both ends open.
  9. Strategy. If you get into a lead of, say 40+ points, you can try to protect it by leaving your opponent no hooks for possible bingos, closing up the board, and playing words inside rather than outside. If you are trailing by this sort of margin, the opposite is true - open up the board by going outwards, and take some chances - you need to get a bingo down.
  10. Timer. We can all come up with brilliant 95-point bingos given unlimited thinking time, but most games are played to 10/0 or 10/10. Don't fall too far behind on time, or you will most likely lose because of time pressure or the clock running out. Also bear in mind that in close games, there can be a big advantage in going out first (getting rid of all the letters) because your opponent's remaining rack letters are deducted from his score, and added to yours. This is even more important in multis (3,4, or 5 players) where you can pick up dozens of points by going out first.
Q WORDS (that don't need a u)
FAQIR(s) - Variation of FAKIR, a Hindu ascetic
QAID(s) - A variation of caid, a Muslim leader
QANAT(s) - A system of underground tunnels and wells in the Middle East
QAT(s) - Variation of kat, an evergreen shrub
QINDAR(s) - Variation of QINTAR, a monetary unit of Albania
QINDARKA - The plural of QINTAR/QINDAR
QINTAR(s) - See above
QOPH(s) - A letter of the Hebrew alphabet
QWERTY(s) - A standard typewriter keyboard
SHEQEL - A unit of weight and money
SHEQALIM - The plural of SHEQEL, see above
TRANQ(s) - Variation of trank (i.e: a tranquilizer)
(s) indicates that the word can also be plural by adding an s


Click on the banner to go back to The TreeTop Times