The Joy of Scrabble

I have already reviewed Scrabble, but when I was invited to participate in this write-off celebrating our favorite games, I knew that Scrabble had to be my choice. So I will be reviewing the deluxe edition of Scrabble, which is much more luxurious and practical than the original version. But first, a word or two about the game...

I have always loved Scrabble. My love of words has a lot to do with it, and there is also the thrill of arranging the tiles into a jackpot of points. Scrabble is one of the games we pull out most often, and we even have a notebook where we record our scores, along with the date of the game played. We haven't always kept that kind of a record; that came about a few years ago when I was in a Scrabble-obsessed phase and we played just about every day. Suffice it to say, Scrabble is my friend.

But I hadn't played it all that much recently until a friend of mine reawakened my interest in the game. We had just returned defeated from the college his sister and I attend. The group of us - the three of us and three friends - had planned to play Midnight Bingo, but we arrived to discover that the date had been misadvertised. As we sat at their house pondering what to do, he came up with the idea of playing Midnight Scrabble instead. So it was that we swung by my house to pick up my board and found ourselves starting up a game of Scrabble at midnight.

It was a revamped, revitalized version of Scrabble which reminded me a bit of the Disney commercial with the little girl who changes the rules to the game and ends up spelling
"supercalifragilisticexpialidocious." (Fun fact: That word was in the title of my first review of Scrabble, which was written long before I saw this commercial.) At any rate, the whole point was just to have fun and to prove that board games don't have to be "bored" games. We didn't even bother to keep score, and we created a completely different set of house rules. It was grand.

So I've been on a Scrabble kick lately. And although most of my games at home with my parents have occurred a little earlier in the day and have followed the more traditional rules, I can't forget the impetus for my renewed love of the game. Scrabble: Teenagers (and college folks) think it's cool, too!

Um... That was more than a word. But that's okay. Here's the gist: For anyone unfortunate enough not to know already, Scrabble is a game consisting of a board and a bag full of lettered tiles. In the deluxe version, the tiles are reddish-brown with white lettering. The board is plastic, and each square is set off in a groove. This is a very helpful in preventing the board from being wiped out by a clutzy movement. Also extremely useful is the turnstile underneath the board, which allows players to turn the board towards them on their turn. These special features make it the ideal board to own.

Although any number of house rules can be implemented, as I noted earlier, the basic rules are that each player has seven tiles on a given turn. That player must make a word by building off of a letter already on the board, except for the first word of the game, which must cover the star in the center of the board. The words can go horizontally or vertically, and special spaces on the board add extra points. There is a 50 point bonus for using all seven tiles. Proper nouns and foreign phrases are not officially allowed, though we dispensed with that rule quickly during Midnight Scrabble. When the bag is empty, the first person to use all of his or her remaining tiles collects the points remaining on the other players' trays. Whoever finishes with the most points wins.

However you play it, S-c-r-a-b-b-l-e spells fun, and it?s my pick for favorite game.