Scrabble! Classic! Over the years it’s become a cornerstone of the board game scene but sometimes there is a discrepancy between skill levels of players making it less fun. Sometimes you just want to use those word skills you have built up over the years and try something new. Well, there is always something new, but before we go on to that, let’s mention a few other options that are maybe worth exploring.
Variants and other games similar to Scrabble.
If you love Scrabble and just want more… go for Super Scrabble. They have 200 tiles instead of 100 and to fit them all in they expand the board by three squares in each direction and even add in Quadruple letter and Quadruple word squares…
How about an evil twist to your Scrabble game? Scrabble Trickster is the way to go. This adds new tiles to the board that allow you to pick up Trickster cards. These allow you to break the rules of the game in some way. From being able to look at the two letter word list for 30 seconds to being able to put a word on the board the wrong way or even allowing one player to steal the score of the previous player. Evil but clearly a game leveller if used correctly.
Elsewhere there is the 1982 classic Upwords. Here the tiles can stack on top of each other and each tile has no points score on it but is worth a point per tile, stack them higher, making sure it still reads as a word and get more and more points! Give your word game a whole new… wait for it… level. Yeah, we went there.
There’s plenty more word games out there and don’t forget the amazing ‘I don’t like spelling’ game of Qwirkle (that’s a whole blog post in itself).
The new word game contender: Shenanigrams.
On to the main focus of this blog, a word game that takes the basic idea of Scrabble and totally changes it… Shenanigrams.
The first thing you notice is the small box. All you have in it is a bag of word tiles (very Scrabble), a set of card word shields (like tile racks) and a box of tags in 6 colours… (that’s new). There are no points on the tiles and no board…
How do you win? Each player has a number of tags, depending on player count. The aim is to get all of your tags out and then, potentially, you’ve won.
So, how do you get a tag out? Well, if you complete a word of 3 letters or more you can place a tag on it. Simple? Well, not quite.
And what does a turn look like? Well you only place out one tile a turn each and then draw back up to 5 tiles. The placed tile has to have the potential to be able to be turned into a word later so no putting an X next to a Q… unless you can think of a word with that combination of letters in it? I certainly can’t.
Before long a three letter word will be formed and a tag goes out. This is where it gets interesting… on other players’ future turns they can get up to all kinds of shenanigans… as long as it still makes an actual word you can either:
- Add letters to the end of any existing word
- Add a letter in to a word
- Swap a letter out for another letter
Bear in mind you still need to follow the crossword like structure of your classic Scrabble game whilst doing this. You can also always start making another word off of any existing tiles on the table. Sometimes it’s good to do that as it can protect one of your own words from a potential swap.
What does this look like? Well consider the word PLAN.
If you had an ‘E’ you could stick it on the end for PLANE.
If you had an ‘I’ you could put it between the ‘A’ and ‘N’ and now you have PLAIN.
If you had an ‘F’ you could swap it with the ‘P’ and it’s now FLAN. In this case you keep the ‘P’ and still have 5 tiles on your shield so would not draw a tile.
You can’t make it so that it doesn’t make a word though, so no putting the ‘E’ between the ‘L’ and ‘A’ (PLEAN) even if you point out later that if you swapped the ‘N’ for a ‘T’ later it would be PLEAT. Once it’s a word it has to stay a word.
Now, here’s the twist. If you put out your last tag then the next player has 5 seconds to remove one or more of your tags and if they do then the game is not over. So.. we’re not going to discuss strategy but, I think you see what you need to do…
The dynamics of this game are quite interesting, it’s a very different kind of game now, you’re now looking to make words that are tricky to swap letters out so you can keep them, whilst at the same time making sure your opponent doesn’t get too many tags out.
No longer the ridiculously long turns as you are 100+ points behind the leader and you’re looking for just one amazing placement to level the game back out… You’re welcome.
Did we also mention this game takes up to 6 players? Yeah… beat that Scrabble! It also plays quickly. The first game can be a bit on the slow side, just like most games as you learn it, but half an hour is a long game once you have the knack.
So, if you like Scrabble and want to try something a bit different, make some anagrams, cause some shenanigans… and try Shenanigrams.