Monday, November 02, 2009

Games To Play with Scrabble Tiles

Bananagrams/Gorilla Scrabble:
Why pay for a bananagrams tile set when you can use your existing scrabble tile set? Here's how the game goes:
- place all tiles face down on the table, no need for the board
- each player take 15 letters face down
- last winner say GRRR and everyone flips their 15 tiles
- try to use all 15 tiles to make words in a crossword manner
- first person who used 15 tiles yell out Jungle Feed and everyone take one more letter
- the last person who yell out Jungle Feed when the tiles run out is the King Gorilla
- everyone inspects King Gorilla's board for misspellings, if none, King Gorilla wins
- if there's a misspelling, King Gorilla becomes a Lemur and their tiles gets dumped in the middle and play continues for everyone else
(*variations: take two instead of take one, count points by number of tiles used, count points by points on the letters, etc*)

Snatchagrams:
This is another no turn based game. Basically the only turn is for a person to flip a tile over, otherwise anyone is free at any time to yell out the words he/she sees and pick up the letters. valid words are 3 letters or more. Can use someone else's letters that has been used in a word, but can't simply rearrange the letters, must add to it. Here's how the game goes:
- Place all tiles face down on the table, no need for the board
- first person to go flips 3 tiles, as soon as the tiles are up anyone can yell out the word he/she sees
- first person to yell a word gets to use the letters that are up to make a word and put it in front of them
- that word can be snatched by another player to make another word as long as every letter in that word is used and at least one more letter is added to make the new word
- play continues until all tiles are gone or no other words can be formed
- winner is the person with the most words
(*variant: winner by points as counted by the letters used or by points on the tile*)

Bingoagrams!
Take seven letters, no board needed
First person try to make a 7 letter word, their turn ends when they swap one or more letters
Next person tries to make a 7 letter word, again their turn ends when they swap letters
Play continues until someone comes up with a 7 letter word
If the word is valid, that player gets one point, if not, loses one point and out of play this round
Rounds continue until someone reaches a predetermined point or time runs out (play to 5 or for an hour)
(*variant:turn ends by player turning in the letter(s) they want to swap but does not take replacement tiles until it's your turn; this way you don't get to think unless it's your turn)

Bingo-cross
Same as above, but when someone gets a seven letter word, the word is laid down on the table. Play continues with that player having 1 point. The next winner can use the letter(s) of previous winner that's face up on the table in a crossword manner. So after the first winner, the second must come up with an 8 letter word.

Pick me!
This is not an easy game, at least not for me. Place all tiles face down on the table, no board needed
Turn over 3 tiles. Each player/team that come up with a word using these three letters in order (either left to right or right to left) wins the round and gets to keep the letters.
Game ends when all tiles are gone and winner is the person/team with the most letters kept

Scram!
Every player picks an agreed upon 4-letter word
Divide remaining tiles evenly upside down so no one knows what they have (set aside leftover, don't lose it!)
Last winner (or youngest, or...?) yells Scram! and everyone turns over their tiles
If you can make a new word out of the original 4-letter word by substituting one of the letters with one of theirs, yell out the new word
The first person who yelled out the new word gets to discard the letter being replaced and replace it with their letter to make the new word
Based on this new word, anyone can yell the next iteration of the word
Winner is the first person who gets rid of their tiles

I'll add more if I can think of or find anything else

1 comment:

The Linns said...

Kia ora! (hello)

I found your blog post about using Scrabble Tiles really useful and interesting. I work for a company that teaches literacy and numeracy to inmates.

WOuld you be happy for me to share your ideas with my colleagues (obviously giving you credit for the information)? For obvious safety reasons we cannot take in a lot of things, but we can take in Scrabble tiles!

I look forward to hearing back from you soon.

Ngā mihi (Thanks)
Nadine