Lexicon Crossing

Revision as of 21:17, 12 October 2014

A game to test your personal word-list thingy

The concept

Players create the highest scoring crossword that they can with their available letters.

Lexicon Crossing (aka "LC") is similar to the Scrabble™ variants "Take Two" or Speed Scrabble, or it's commercial cousin Bananagram™. From these it draws it's most basic gameplay, but is scored uniquely. This scoring brings forth an emphasis on longer words, and rare letters - so encouraging wider vocabulary use. This is in direct contrast to my observed results of playing Speed Scrabble and the like. LC gameplay can progress either fast or slow, depending on the players.

Requirements

• Scrabble tiles or clones (so long as they have per-tile scores as Scrabble)
  • LC is playable with a Scrabble set of 98 letters (no blanks) for 2 or 3 players, however, this page also proposes a 120 tile set for 2-4 players, and which tweaks letter distribution to better suit gameplay.
• Sufficient workspace for each player (equivalent space to a regular scrabble board per player should be considered minimum)
  • A 50x73cm test board was found to be suitable for a 2player game (seen on the timelapse video below)

Setup

• All tiles are placed face down in the center and shuffled
• Half the tiles are divided between players as their their starting tiles (see guide below)
  • If required, add extra tiles to ensure equal tiles per player
  • If required, add extra tiles to ensure a minimum of 15 tiles per player at start.
• The remaining tiles are set between the players to draw from throughout the game (pickup pool)

Score: 36 points / 9 words = final score of 4

Starting tiles guide

It is not viable to play more than 4 players on a single scrabble set, as approx 15 tiles are needed to start, and around 10 rounds to have a reasonable game. The LC120 tile set is usable up to 5 players by this guideline (15 tiles each, 9 rounds - or 14 tiles and 10 rounds). Naturally, if multiple scrabble tile sets are added, then more players are viable. Scale to suit.

Play

• During play, all players work simultaneously on their own individual crosswords.
• Once a player has integrated all their current tiles into a coherent set, they can call "green light" - which signals to ALL players to draw one tile from the pickup pool.
  • All players draw one tile only.
  • You are not required to call 'green light', perhaps instead preferring to take the advantage of time to pursue improved tile layouts. (also, waiting for someone else to 'green light' means you can benefit from jaywalking (next rule ;)
• At any time during a turn, each player who did not call 'Green Light' most recently have the additional option of returning a single tile from their set to the pool, and drawing a replacement. This is "jaywalking" and can be performed only once per player per round. It should be politely announced, but does not otherwise interrupt gameplay of other players.
  • On the first round, all players are building from their allocated sets - everybody is thus allowed a jaywalk at this stage
• Rounds repeat until the pickup pool is exhausted (or is fewer than the number of players) and one player has added all their tiles into the crossword. Instead of green, they then call "red light" to stop the game.
  • Other players have a minute to finalise their layouts.
• Scores are tallied and the winner is the player with the highest calculated result.

Score: 61 points / 14 words = 4.36

Scoring

• Tiles that are part of two words are scored by summing their tile values. Ignore leftover tiles at this stage.
  • eg: if KEYBOARD was crossed with 'CAKE' on the K, BED on the B and RUBBISH on the R - then the points for K(5), B(3) and R(1) would be added to a 9 point total
• Points are then divided by the total number of words to come up with the final calculated score. Note that each leftover tile counts as an extra word!
  • 9 points divided by 4 words (KEYBOARD, CAKE, BED, RUBBISH) = 2.25
• A calculator is handy for scoring as 1 or 2 decimal places may be required to differentiate in close games
• Display of scores should be in the form of points/words=score. In this way, a sense of the game can also be determined
  • This is not entirely dissimilar to the manner in which AFL scores are given with a goal and behind breakdown.
  • points/(words made + tiles remaining)=score is also acceptable.

Example

The first two games tested resulted in the following scores

• 52 points / 17 words = 3.06 final score beat
  • 66 points / 25 words = 2.64 final score

• 70 points / 19 words = 3.68 final score beat
  • 49 points / 16 words = 3.06 final score

These two games demonstrate the winning strategies of both fewer words and higher points (or alternatively, that it's possible to lose despite having more points, and despite having fewer words!)

Dictionary notes

• All words made must be valid by some prior agreement of what constitutes "valid". For example - a local dictionary, or valid Scrabble™ words list.
• There are no limitations on word repetition, minimum or maximum length

Misc notes and tactics

• Maximise the scoring letter values - ie, intersect words on the high point scorers.
• Minimise the number of short words.
  • Only a very few short words make sense to use: For instance, adding 'R' inside a corner to make OR and AR is counterproductive (+4 points /2 words, net result is a score of 2 - likely to bring your score down. Even 'W' to make OW and AW only gains +6 points for /2 words - an average of 3. However, 'X' gives OX and AX - that is +10points for /2 words. 5 point scoring average is very likely worthwhile!
• Take the time to rearrange your crossword when you see better opportunities. Words can be moved at any time (they are only required to be a contiguous set of crossing words for the player to call green or red light. At any other time (including scoring), they can be in any state of (dis)array.
  • Remember, you don't HAVE to call 'green light'... take advantage of a completed board to consider alterations!
• Create loops. Four words normally only has three scoring tiles, but as a loop, has four.

Advantages over Scrabble™

• Play is simultaneous.
• Not limited by word length
• Tiles can be rearranged during play
• No board required
• Whilst Scrabble encourages targeting set positions on the board to gain points, Lexicon Crossing targets the tiles in the context of your own hand.
• Scrabble, Bananagram, etc, encourage short words (in Scrabble by the use of parallel words giving rise to multiple point scoring per tile, and in Bananagram due to it being a speed game) Some variants of Speed Scrabble forbid two letter words, but as demonstrated above, Lexicon Crossing needs no such restriction as it encourages longer words due to the scoring mechanism.

Disadvantages

• Play is not on a communal board, so that direct interaction of Scrabble is lost. Actual interaction in play is dependant on players and can vary widely. ie, how "social" your game of LC is, depends on the players :)

Score: 67/14= 4.79

House Variations

These have been though of and recognised as variations that people may find more to their taste/style/etc. Some of these are based on earlier revisions of LC as the game was refined, and may be useful if a faster game is desired.

• Varying the number of starting tiles (up to a maximum where all tiles are divided evenly. Remember: the number of rounds is normally the number of remaining tiles divided by the number of players)
  • lower than 15 is not recommended
• Allow two tiles per green light. (half as many rounds)
• Jaywalking rule variations
  • disallow entirely
  • relax the limitations on how often, and/or which players may jaywalk (faster)
  • Allow a 2-for-1 pickup. (ie, return one, pick up two) (faster)

"out of the house" Variations

Many of the best games can be used as easy foundations for new games. For example, drinking versions, strip versions, etc, as well as simple house rule variations on the basic rule set.

These are not official game rules, but give an idea of how the game can be expanded upon to the point of more or less being whole new games (though clearly still with LC origins). Should the game take off, I'm sure other variants will arise! :)

• Drinking LC:
  • pay to jaywalk by taking a sip
  • call green light to make everyone ELSE take a sip
    • The green lighter may be challenged, and has to finish/take a drink if any invalid words are found. If all are OK, then the challenger finishes/takes a drink.
  • On red light - A drink for every incomplete board and invalid word.
• Strip LC
  • spell an item of clothing and call green light - to require the other player(s) to remove that item.

Team Play?

Two forms of team play are proposed.

1. Each team works on a shared set of words and tiles.
2. With two players per team, player maintains their own board, but may swap one tile with their team member per green light. In this way one team member may sacrifice their good tiles to the other.

• • This would be for four players only, given the tile limitations of the standard scrabble set, though with more tiles, could scale appropriately
  • Scoring? Best score for the team? Combined scoring? Average of scores? (the same thing?). Best "lowest" score for the team.

Score: 62/12=5.167 - this was on an LC98 tile set

LC120 / LC160

The LC120 is a proposed 120tile set that differs from the standard scrabble set, though the letter scorings are the same. It is not a superset of the scrabble set since it has fewer "I"s. It can be created as a subset of 3 scrabble sets (this due to K and Z tripling in count)

LC160 extends this to a 160 tile set, and can be made as a subset of four(?) scrabble sets.

Current proposal for the LC120 (and the variance from the Scrabble98) is:

       LC120   S98 variance	LC160
A	11	+2		14
B	2			3
C	3	+1		5
D	4			6
E	15	+3		16
F	2			4
G	3			4
H	3	+1		8
I	7	-2		10
J	2	+1		2
K	3	+2		3
L	4			6
M	3	+1		4
N	8	+2		9
O	9	+1		11
P	2			3
Q	2	+1		2
R	7	+1		8
S	6	+2		8
T	8	+2		14
U	4			5
V	2			3
W	2			4
X	2	+1		2
Y	3	+1		4
Z	3	+2		2

It is hoped that the greater proportion of high-point scoring letters reduces the affect of random chance in game outcome (in a two player S98 game, someone who gets 3 of the 4 8/10 point tiles, is very hard to beat! LC120 has a 20% increase in tile count, but a 100% increase in tiles that score 5, 8 or 10!

LC120 scales easily to 5 players and (yet to be tested) has improved letter distribution. LC160 scales to 6 players. As of writing, both are untested. LC160 may less suitable for two player games simply due to tile overload. (thus?: S™98 = 2-4 players, LC120 = 2-5 players, LC160 = 3-6 players)

Score: 34/8=4.25 - an exercise in using only highscoring tiles, and minimising word count. Game was using an experimental 80 tile set

Notes/misc

• Expect a 2 player game to take between half an hour and an hour. In general, game length is determined by the number of rounds, so adjust round length (see House Variations above) to suit.
• Needs more play testing on 3 and 4 person games
• Need to playtest a jaywalking variant where returned tiles are left face-up and may be claimed by any other placer at any time (without having to return a tile to do so). This could be especially relevant to tactics in 3 and 4 player games where jaywalking to increase personal tile count is preferable as more tiles increases the chance of a better score.

• With a little practice, scoring between 3.5 and 4.5 should be common for an average Scrabble player. However, this scoring method can achieve a theoretical score greater than 10 (imagine a 4x4 grid of words that uses the top 16 point scoring tiles. 84/8=10.5). The best possible score whilst being restricted to valid words is unknown. In real world play, 5+ is possible, but I doubt 6 would be achievable.

Based on, like, Scrabble™, Bananagram™, our brains, and stuff

taglines...

• Make the words you always wanted to make
• fantastic words for fun and profit

Links

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrabble_variants
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bananagrams