I love word games and the best ones I've found are: 1) WYPS (easily beats all others, a most elegant mix of a connection game with a word game. Different board sizes, no scoring, no clumsy rules. Played at Little Golem and Boardspace. The only thing that is preventing it from overtaking Scrabble as THE word game is the lack of mass produced physical set and lack of advertising). 2) Boggle (simple word spotting, elegant, portable, cheap, very easy to get to a table). 3) OSKI (very simple and THE word game to play with pencil and paper - just draw a small hexhex-3 board and play; also available on Little Golem)
This is honestly the best new series you've had in a while. Showing games that dethrone the classics. Fantastic idea. I can't wait to see what else you cover in this series!
KabukiKid I like paperback and kickstarted "hardback." I also love letter tycoon. Check out Word Domination. I ordered Wordsy so I hope Tom is right about that one.
Agreed, Boggle is great. I also like Bananagrams, it's a lot quicker and less thinky than Scrabble. All my games have come down to the wire too, even if someone starts with a big lead. This definitely could have been a 10 game list not just 9. Lots of good word games out there. I would argue that Codenames is a word game too :P
My wife, Sara and I would always take Scrabble on vacation to play with each other once the kids were in bed... excited for this list. Love word games in general. Thanks for making the video!
As a fan of word games, I'm looking forward to trying out a few of these. However, none of these are better than Scrabble. Scrabble, when played by real enthusiasts, is far more than just a test of one player's vocabulary versus another (though yes, it's also that). It is a game of intense strategy and creativity, incorporating traditional elements of Eurogames such as area control, resource management (i.e., hand management/tile leave in Scrabble), and victory point optimization, as well as elements of Bluffing games such as poker. And that's just scratching the surface. Creativity: In Scrabble, you're challenged to think creatively in a multitude of ways, with a few examples being the necessity to overlap, underlap, and hook words together: -- Overlapping/Underlapping (Parallel Plays): Rather than playing perpendicularly through an existing word, it's extremely satisfying (and lucrative) to play parallel to an existing word, creating multiple words and a high-scoring play all at once. The godfather of all parallel plays is to play a 7-letter word directly above or below your opponent's 7-letter word, making 8 total words in a single move. For example, your opponent played SENATOR, and then you played "IRONISE" (British version of "ironize") underneath, with the I directly below the S, thus also making seven two letter words at once (SI, ER, NO, AN, TI, OS, RE). One rarely captures even but glimpse of such a remarkable feat in the Scrabble wild, but it has been known to occur. --Hooking: Sometimes though, playing perpendicular is the right decision, just not in the way that people may think. Rather than playing through an existing word and only making one word on your turn, you can "hook" a letter to the end of an existing word and then build off of it perpendicularly. The most common letter to do this with is "S," since you can pluralize most nouns and conjugate many verbs by adding an S to the end. For example, you could add "S" to "Tiger" and making "Tigers," while simultaneously building downward and writing "Scumbag" (while sneering at your opponent, of course). However, the creative part of hooking really comes when you think about ways to hook a letter that may be completely unintuitive and entirely change the sound of a word, such as adding an "O" to the end of "FLAMING," or an "I" to the end of "LUNG" for LUNGI (a type of loincloth worn in India). And if you really want to throw someone for a loop, add an S to the beginning of the word "GRAFFITI" rather than the end of the word. Euro-game dynamics: - I won't say it better than "TrentonTron" does here on BGG: boardgamegeek.com/thread/1138346/scrabble-eurogamers-perspective In-Depth Scrabble strategy and tactics: - Expert Player Kenji Matsumoto's blog(s) are a great place to look, even just to get a general idea: -- strataji.wordpress.com/scrabble/ -- www.breakingthegame.net/strategy Poker/Bluffing Dynamics: - It is entirely legal to put down bogus words or "phonies" in Scrabble vernacular. "Challenging" an opponent's word is an integral aspect of Scrabble, and when you place your move down your opponent has the opportunity to "challenge" it, in which case you would go to the agreed upon impartial arbiter (ideally a previously agreed upon dictionary rather a relative, sibling, or similar armchair lexicographer) and discover if it is indeed a word. I recommend using this dictionary: scrabble.merriam.com/ as your word judge - Although in friendly household match it might be considered mildly assholish to put down a bogus word against your grandmother, in a competitive match it is par for the course. Bluffing becomes a key aspect of the game, with your ability to keep a straight face matched against your opponent's word knowledge, ability to read through your BS, and ability to strategically evaluate the probability that you would bluff given the available tiles that you just played and alternative options on the board. For example, if I put down the word "ANESTRI," my opponent, if they're good, can deduce that this is a valid word and not a bluff, because with a bit of anagramming skill they can re-scramble "ANESTRI" into a multitude of other 7-letter words, including commonly known words such as antsier, nastier, retains, retinas, and stainer, and a few more less commonly known words such as ratines, retsina, and stearin. If I had this buffet of options available, why would I go and play a phoney? - To be truly evil, one can intentionally play a phoney, and then if an opponent does not challenge it but instead builds off of it with a hook, such as the letter S as given in a previous example, you could then challenge their move off the board since you know that whatever pluralized "word" they've made is absolute garbage. Perhaps the most common critique of Scrabble is that in order to be "good" you have to memorize a vast amount of arcane, obsolete, or otherwise useless vocabulary. Though there is definitely some truth to this critique, as an actual "problem" with the game, it is grossly overstated. I recommend printing out a list of the two and three letter words in friendly games, particularly when one player has a larger Scrabble background than the other. This will even the playing field somewhat and remove some of the advantage that the more experienced player brings to the game by knowing the admittedly seemingly arbitrary short words that are critical for making parallel plays. Again, this comment is really just scratching the the surface. Scrabble is an amazing game, beating all those referenced in this video by leaps and bounds. It may not be the game for everyone, but there's far more going on than may at first meet the eye. -- Disclaimers: - I owe credit for the phrase "armchair lexicographer" to this Scrabble article in the New Yorker: www.newyorker.com/sports/sporting-scene/the-battle-over-scrabbles-dictionaries - I have never played any of the games Tom mentions in this video. And yet, based on his descriptions, I think Scrabble has them beat. -
I love this series Tom. Keep it up! I grew up with all these 'classics' (I'm +50) but have discovered 'better' games. Love the series, love your crew, thank you for all your efforts!
I don't really think that's in the spirit of this series. These have all been mass-market games. And as popular as Catan is, it's no where near the popularity of the big mass-market giants.
jorge a. moreno aldape I would also like this. I love catan and introduce a lot of people to games with it. But what's good if those people like catan, but that's better?
For me, Scrabble is much more than just a word game it also has area control but is is very subtle. You get more points by playing tiles on specific spaces, so you have to watch out about leaving those areas open; playing only for big words will make you lose. I don't think there's another game like it, but I, a Scrabble lover, would rather play something like Qwirkle if looking for a substitute.
Juan Molina True. In that vain it's really weird that Quirkle wasn't on this list: if you like scrabble, but don't like the fact that vocabulary is so important...
Absolutely agree. Scrabble also has a subtle sort of resource management. Most obvious being to save your "s" until you can score converting a word to plural. -but also things like trying to use "u" in preference to "a" and "e" because it's less likely to be useful later. Trying to maintain a good balance of vowels and consonant. Plus all sorts of other things based on the board and your rack. Qwirkle has that sort of play a little as well, (Saving the 5th tile in a sequence in case you happen to draw the 6th and so can place 2 at once and score a Qwirkle.) Personally I prefer Scrabble to Qwirkle, but still it's a surprising omission based on usual reasoning of this series.
I agree. So much of scrabble after you know a certain amount of words is managing area control and resources. Trying to make sure the other player can't get the multipliers and saving yourself the big point tiles for those multipliers. At a certain point tactics takes over from vocabulary as the most important skill and the way the game has such a skillset shift at high levels is one of the most interesting things about it.
If you really like word-building games, I'd highly recommend looking into "Buyword", which is a game by the late Sid Sackson. It's a word game mixed with a very, very light economic game where you are making words to try and make the most money.
If you like the crossword puzzle element- try C.O.G. from Steve Finn (designer of Biblios) It's worker placement mixed with scrabble. Also, Word Domination!
The sequel to Paperback, Hardback, is coming out soon! My mother loves Scrabble. I've gotten her Paperback, Word on the Street, Letter Tycoon, & Tapple (not yet played). She liked all that she's played (except for Word on the Street) so far. She also liked Scrabble SLAM!
A better title for the video would have been "9 Scrabble Alternatives". Saying they are "better" then Scrabble is very subjective, and the games on this list all play so different from Scrabble that you really can't compare them to it. Also, you didn't include Up-Words or Bananagrams, and that really has me scratching my head. Those games are *much* more similar to Scrabble then these are. Up-Words in particular is basically a sort of sequel to Scrabble(if board games had sequels).
I am looking forward to my copy of Hardback, but for a different take on the genre- Scrutineyes. You are given a picture with a large number of items; your goal is to name things no one else has thought of, so you need to know the names of things or come up with unique of ways of titling things.
Word Thief, Quiddler, and Don't Take My Word are all good games to play with heavy Scrabble and not so heavy Scrabble players. Also, what about Qwirkle and Unspeakable Words?
Krazy Wordz ist a really good game, that is similar to Scrabble AND it is way better than Scrabble. But it is not that long that there is an english version of that game out, so mabey Tom didn't hear of that game.
One thing I don't like about Scrabble is how a person could place a single letter & earn more pts on their turn than someone making a large word using many of their letters.
Scrabble has to many limitations. I want to be able to spell every word in the dictionary with no problems.i have the app and theres many problems.words that suppost to be accepted don't go threw.plus everytime it tells me the words are valid but don't go threw and they don't even have the definition for most of the words.real sad.scrabble needs to step it up.
So far, Bananagrams is the only game I've sold my Scrabble-loving mother on as an alternate. I Kickstarted Hardback, so I'm hoping that one will work for her as well.
Bananagrams can be fun, but it falls into the same camp as Scrabble (perhaps why your mother likes it!). It puts a huge emphasis on small words since the primary goal is to have the most words. Plus, it really is a speed game so that doesn't go over well with everyone. Still though, for the price and how easy it is to find, it's hard to bash it.
I love word games and the best ones I've found are:
1) WYPS (easily beats all others, a most elegant mix of a connection game with a word game. Different board sizes, no scoring, no clumsy rules. Played at Little Golem and Boardspace. The only thing that is preventing it from overtaking Scrabble as THE word game is the lack of mass produced physical set and lack of advertising).
2) Boggle (simple word spotting, elegant, portable, cheap, very easy to get to a table).
3) OSKI (very simple and THE word game to play with pencil and paper - just draw a small hexhex-3 board and play; also available on Little Golem)
This is honestly the best new series you've had in a while. Showing games that dethrone the classics. Fantastic idea. I can't wait to see what else you cover in this series!
My favorite word game is the classic, fast playing and always fun (at least that has been my experience) BOGGLE!
I still like Boggle too. :-) Letter Tycoon and Paperback are the recent ones I discovered that I really love. Glad Tom mentioned them both. :-)
KabukiKid I like paperback and kickstarted "hardback." I also love letter tycoon. Check out Word Domination. I ordered Wordsy so I hope Tom is right about that one.
I also backed Hardback. Hope it is good. :-) I will definitely check out those others as soon as I can. I dig a good word game. :-)
Agreed, Boggle is great. I also like Bananagrams, it's a lot quicker and less thinky than Scrabble. All my games have come down to the wire too, even if someone starts with a big lead. This definitely could have been a 10 game list not just 9. Lots of good word games out there. I would argue that Codenames is a word game too :P
I was expecting Qwirkle to be on the list as a non-word example of a game with similar mechanisms.
refresh daemon Indeed
I thought that he might have said Wasabi!, as him and Sam have referred to it as 'scrabble with pictures'.
My wife, Sara and I would always take Scrabble on vacation to play with each other once the kids were in bed... excited for this list. Love word games in general. Thanks for making the video!
Tom, how could you leave out the most excellent Word Domination? It is awesome! A new family favorite...
As a fan of word games, I'm looking forward to trying out a few of these. However, none of these are better than Scrabble.
Scrabble, when played by real enthusiasts, is far more than just a test of one player's vocabulary versus another (though yes, it's also that). It is a game of intense strategy and creativity, incorporating traditional elements of Eurogames such as area control, resource management (i.e., hand management/tile leave in Scrabble), and victory point optimization, as well as elements of Bluffing games such as poker. And that's just scratching the surface.
Creativity: In Scrabble, you're challenged to think creatively in a multitude of ways, with a few examples being the necessity to overlap, underlap, and hook words together:
-- Overlapping/Underlapping (Parallel Plays): Rather than playing perpendicularly through an existing word, it's extremely satisfying (and lucrative) to play parallel to an existing word, creating multiple words and a high-scoring play all at once. The godfather of all parallel plays is to play a 7-letter word directly above or below your opponent's 7-letter word, making 8 total words in a single move. For example, your opponent played SENATOR, and then you played "IRONISE" (British version of "ironize") underneath, with the I directly below the S, thus also making seven two letter words at once (SI, ER, NO, AN, TI, OS, RE). One rarely captures even but glimpse of such a remarkable feat in the Scrabble wild, but it has been known to occur.
--Hooking: Sometimes though, playing perpendicular is the right decision, just not in the way that people may think. Rather than playing through an existing word and only making one word on your turn, you can "hook" a letter to the end of an existing word and then build off of it perpendicularly. The most common letter to do this with is "S," since you can pluralize most nouns and conjugate many verbs by adding an S to the end. For example, you could add "S" to "Tiger" and making "Tigers," while simultaneously building downward and writing "Scumbag" (while sneering at your opponent, of course). However, the creative part of hooking really comes when you think about ways to hook a letter that may be completely unintuitive and entirely change the sound of a word, such as adding an "O" to the end of "FLAMING," or an "I" to the end of "LUNG" for LUNGI (a type of loincloth worn in India). And if you really want to throw someone for a loop, add an S to the beginning of the word "GRAFFITI" rather than the end of the word.
Euro-game dynamics:
- I won't say it better than "TrentonTron" does here on BGG: boardgamegeek.com/thread/1138346/scrabble-eurogamers-perspective
In-Depth Scrabble strategy and tactics:
- Expert Player Kenji Matsumoto's blog(s) are a great place to look, even just to get a general idea:
-- strataji.wordpress.com/scrabble/
-- www.breakingthegame.net/strategy
Poker/Bluffing Dynamics:
- It is entirely legal to put down bogus words or "phonies" in Scrabble vernacular. "Challenging" an opponent's word is an integral aspect of Scrabble, and when you place your move down your opponent has the opportunity to "challenge" it, in which case you would go to the agreed upon impartial arbiter (ideally a previously agreed upon dictionary rather a relative, sibling, or similar armchair lexicographer) and discover if it is indeed a word. I recommend using this dictionary: scrabble.merriam.com/ as your word judge
- Although in friendly household match it might be considered mildly assholish to put down a bogus word against your grandmother, in a competitive match it is par for the course. Bluffing becomes a key aspect of the game, with your ability to keep a straight face matched against your opponent's word knowledge, ability to read through your BS, and ability to strategically evaluate the probability that you would bluff given the available tiles that you just played and alternative options on the board. For example, if I put down the word "ANESTRI," my opponent, if they're good, can deduce that this is a valid word and not a bluff, because with a bit of anagramming skill they can re-scramble "ANESTRI" into a multitude of other 7-letter words, including commonly known words such as antsier, nastier, retains, retinas, and stainer, and a few more less commonly known words such as ratines, retsina, and stearin. If I had this buffet of options available, why would I go and play a phoney?
- To be truly evil, one can intentionally play a phoney, and then if an opponent does not challenge it but instead builds off of it with a hook, such as the letter S as given in a previous example, you could then challenge their move off the board since you know that whatever pluralized "word" they've made is absolute garbage.
Perhaps the most common critique of Scrabble is that in order to be "good" you have to memorize a vast amount of arcane, obsolete, or otherwise useless vocabulary. Though there is definitely some truth to this critique, as an actual "problem" with the game, it is grossly overstated. I recommend printing out a list of the two and three letter words in friendly games, particularly when one player has a larger Scrabble background than the other. This will even the playing field somewhat and remove some of the advantage that the more experienced player brings to the game by knowing the admittedly seemingly arbitrary short words that are critical for making parallel plays.
Again, this comment is really just scratching the the surface. Scrabble is an amazing game, beating all those referenced in this video by leaps and bounds. It may not be the game for everyone, but there's far more going on than may at first meet the eye.
--
Disclaimers:
- I owe credit for the phrase "armchair lexicographer" to this Scrabble article in the New Yorker: www.newyorker.com/sports/sporting-scene/the-battle-over-scrabbles-dictionaries
- I have never played any of the games Tom mentions in this video. And yet, based on his descriptions, I think Scrabble has them beat.
-
Two word games that my students loved: Taboo and Unspeakable Words.
I love this series Tom. Keep it up! I grew up with all these 'classics' (I'm +50) but have discovered 'better' games. Love the series, love your crew, thank you for all your efforts!
Kiitos is a newer word game that is good
I just ordered Word on the Street for the board game club I run. The other sponsor and I tried it out yesterday and loved it.
Hey Tom, go a step forward, do "games that are better than settlers of catan"
I don't really think that's in the spirit of this series. These have all been mass-market games. And as popular as Catan is, it's no where near the popularity of the big mass-market giants.
SykoLiu He's gonna run out of mass market games and Catan is just one step removed at this point.
jorge a. moreno aldape I would also like this. I love catan and introduce a lot of people to games with it. But what's good if those people like catan, but that's better?
Catan is quite popular. In my country (Romania) they sell Catan at the Bookstores.
I assumed he would do Catan and Dominion no?
For me, Scrabble is much more than just a word game it also has area control but is is very subtle. You get more points by playing tiles on specific spaces, so you have to watch out about leaving those areas open; playing only for big words will make you lose. I don't think there's another game like it, but I, a Scrabble lover, would rather play something like Qwirkle if looking for a substitute.
Juan Molina True. In that vain it's really weird that Quirkle wasn't on this list: if you like scrabble, but don't like the fact that vocabulary is so important...
Absolutely agree. Scrabble also has a subtle sort of resource management. Most obvious being to save your "s" until you can score converting a word to plural. -but also things like trying to use "u" in preference to "a" and "e" because it's less likely to be useful later. Trying to maintain a good balance of vowels and consonant.
Plus all sorts of other things based on the board and your rack.
Qwirkle has that sort of play a little as well, (Saving the 5th tile in a sequence in case you happen to draw the 6th and so can place 2 at once and score a Qwirkle.)
Personally I prefer Scrabble to Qwirkle, but still it's a surprising omission based on usual reasoning of this series.
I agree. So much of scrabble after you know a certain amount of words is managing area control and resources. Trying to make sure the other player can't get the multipliers and saving yourself the big point tiles for those multipliers. At a certain point tactics takes over from vocabulary as the most important skill and the way the game has such a skillset shift at high levels is one of the most interesting things about it.
Juan Molina try word domination it will give you your area control. A little less restrictive than scrabble which makes it more fun for all ages.
How about Qwirkle?, not a word game but the mechanic is the same as Scrabble only with shapes and colors!
Two of my favorites are RSVP & Upwords
Thanks for putting this together!
If you really like word-building games, I'd highly recommend looking into "Buyword", which is a game by the late Sid Sackson.
It's a word game mixed with a very, very light economic game where you are making words to try and make the most money.
I came here to recommend Buyword. Fantastic word building game with Sid Sackson's economic/market twist to scoring.
My LGS got a few copies in, though theres not a lot of info on the game online it seems.
If you like the crossword puzzle element- try C.O.G. from Steve Finn (designer of Biblios)
It's worker placement mixed with scrabble.
Also, Word Domination!
The sequel to Paperback, Hardback, is coming out soon!
My mother loves Scrabble. I've gotten her Paperback, Word on the Street, Letter Tycoon, & Tapple (not yet played). She liked all that she's played (except for Word on the Street) so far. She also liked Scrabble SLAM!
A better title for the video would have been "9 Scrabble Alternatives". Saying they are "better" then Scrabble is very subjective, and the games on this list all play so different from Scrabble that you really can't compare them to it. Also, you didn't include Up-Words or Bananagrams, and that really has me scratching my head. Those games are *much* more similar to Scrabble then these are. Up-Words in particular is basically a sort of sequel to Scrabble(if board games had sequels).
Was hoping for a mention of Old Harold Delaney. He's a big scrabble fan.
Looks like no one else got that joke. RIP Norm.
Paperback is my favorite all time game. I'm looking forward to getting my copy of hardback.
Great. Now my searches for "10 games better than..." will always miss this episode. Thanks a lot --redacted--.
I am looking forward to my copy of Hardback, but for a different take on the genre- Scrutineyes. You are given a picture with a large number of items; your goal is to name things no one else has thought of, so you need to know the names of things or come up with unique of ways of titling things.
I used to love Last Word (Milton Bradley, 1985).
why upwords is not on the list?
Word Thief, Quiddler, and Don't Take My Word are all good games to play with heavy Scrabble and not so heavy Scrabble players. Also, what about Qwirkle and Unspeakable Words?
Definitely Quiddler and Unspeakable Words, also bop! (Scrabble without vowels)
I can vouch for Quibbler. It's widely available and it's a good mix of word-building and a very familiar card game like Rummy.
Anagram is my favorite word game. Works great at the school.
My fav word game is Bananagrams.
I like the look of Spell Smashers.
Bananagram is the best!
Unspeakable Words - word game with a Cthulhu theme
My favorite word game is Word Wheel, but it's out of print.
Kerflip is the best word game that never gets talked about.
I thought Unspeakable Words would somehow be in the list. I guessed wrong.
I agree. I know Tom isn't a big fan of Cthulhu pasted into games, but Unspeakable Words is fun.
Krazy Wordz ist a really good game, that is similar to Scrabble AND it is way better than Scrabble.
But it is not that long that there is an english version of that game out, so mabey Tom didn't hear of that game.
One thing I don't like about Scrabble is how a person could place a single letter & earn more pts on their turn than someone making a large word using many of their letters.
Word on the Street! Yeah!
Was this sped up? Seemed like tom was talking/ moving really fast!
TylerAndToast is
chuckled at FUN RONI
Upwords has more interactions between players, it is much better than Scrabble
Scrabble has to many limitations. I want to be able to spell every word in the dictionary with no problems.i have the app and theres many problems.words that suppost to be accepted don't go threw.plus everytime it tells me the words are valid but don't go threw and they don't even have the definition for most of the words.real sad.scrabble needs to step it up.
No unspeakable words???? I don't like Cthulhu and I still think that game is more fun than some games on this list.
Vanilla isn't a valid answer in Tapple.
Bananagram!
At least this one only has 1403 games better than it.
I just watched this and scrabble is better than all these games I wouldn't play any of them and I will play almost any game
Hey I played Scrabble with my Great Grandma in the 1980s .... yes it was boring !
10 games that are better than Phase 10
Christian Kroner Pick any 10 games...
Upwords!
Vocabulary isn't the problem, it's the spelling that continues to screw me over
Letters from the alphabet, you say?
No Bananagrams?
So far, Bananagrams is the only game I've sold my Scrabble-loving mother on as an alternate. I Kickstarted Hardback, so I'm hoping that one will work for her as well.
Bananagrams can be fun, but it falls into the same camp as Scrabble (perhaps why your mother likes it!). It puts a huge emphasis on small words since the primary goal is to have the most words. Plus, it really is a speed game so that doesn't go over well with everyone.
Still though, for the price and how easy it is to find, it's hard to bash it.
What about Bananagrams?
Bananagram of course
Dumbing down?
Bananagrams.....?