Lexicon Crossing

Revision as of 15:02, 18 February 2011

A word-list thingy game

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

• timelapse video of a game on youtube

The concept

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

Lexicon Crossing is perhaps most similar to Bananagram, from which is draws its basic gameplay (this is also similar to Speed Scrabble), but is scored uniquely. This scoring sets it apart from the speed of Bananagram and Scrabble, and brings forth an emphasis on longer words, and the re-use of rarer letters.

Requirements

• A set of Scrabble™ tiles
• A large amount of workspace for each player
  • my 50x73cm test (coffee table) was found suitable for a 2player game, though larger (perhaps 50x100 would have been ideal)

To start

• The tiles are placed face down and shuffled (excluding blanks)
• Players draw the required amount of tiles.
• The left over tiles are set to the side to draw throughout the game.

Starting tiles

• Two player - 30 tiles each (leaves 38 in the pile, 19 rounds)
• Three player - 20 tiles each (leaves 38, ~13 rounds)
• Four player - 15 tiles each (leaves 38, ~10 rounds)

It is not viable to play more than 4 players on a single scrabble set, as approx 15 tiles are needed to start, and 10 rounds to have decent game play. If multiple scrabble tile sets are added, then more players are viable. Scale proportionally.

Play

• Once the game begins, all players work simultaneously on their individual crosswords.
• Once a player uses all their tiles, they can call "green light" which is the signal for all players to choose a new tile from the pile.
• Once that new tile is incorporated into the crossword, the cycle continues.
• This goes on and on until the pile is exhausted and one player has added all their tiles into the crossword. They then call "red light" to stop the game.
  • Red light may be called if the number of tiles available in the pile is fewer than the number of players.
• Scores are then tallied and the winner is the player with the highest calculated result.

Rules

• All words made must be valid by some agreement of what constitutes "valid". Valid Scrabble™ words is a good start.
  • There is no limitation on word repetition, minimum or maximum length
• All words on the board must form part of the crossword.
• Once per 'green light' turn, a player can put a tile back into the pile and take two replacements. We call this "jaywalking" to keep in theme. It should be politely announced, but does not otherwise interrupt gameplay of other players.

Scoring

Score: 67 points / 14 words = 4.79 final score. Impressive!

• Tiles that are at the intersection of two words are scored by summing their Scrabble tile values. Ignore leftover tiles at this stage.
  • To clarify: you only score tiles that are used in 2 words, but count the point value once.
  • eg: if KEYBOARD was crossed with 'CAKE', BED and RUBBISH, 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. And remember those leftover tiles? Every 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.

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!)

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: 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. Finally, OX and AX nets +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.
  • Remember, you don't HAVE to call 'green light'... take advantage of a completed board to consider alterations!
• Reduced tile sets (ie, 3 and 4 person games) gives lower final scores. This may be seen as a tactical benefit to jaywalking - increasing the tile count for purposes of gaining options!

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 encourages multiple use of rare letters
• 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 simply due to their value in scoring.

Disadvantages

• Play is not on a communal board, so the 'enforced' social and competitive interaction of Scrabble is lost. Actual interaction in play is dependant on players.

House rules / variations

These are not part of the offical game as presented above, but have been though of and recognised as variations that people may find more to their taste/style/etc. Should the game take off, I'm sure other variants will arise! :)

• Varying the number of starting tiles (up to a maximum where all tiles are divided evenly)
  • lower than 15 is not recommended
• up to 8 players
  • 6 players = 15 each + 1 round
  • 7 players = 12 tiles each + 2 rounds only
  • 8 players = 12 tiles each, time challenge only

Notes/misc

• Expect a 2 player game to take between half an hour and an hour. In general, more players will result in faster games.
• 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 only a little practice, scoring between 3.50 and 4.50 should be common for an average Scrabble player

Links

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