Scrabble With Attitude (Wordox)

Name: wampyrii

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Product:	Wordox
Date:	29/01/03 (753 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Fun

Disadvantages: Addictive

Bored with movies for the moment. It's that time of year when there really isn't anything worth watching anyway...well, aside from The Ring maybe but as that's a remake of one of my very favourite horror movies I'll probably not like it too much. I could bore you with the umpteenth Lord Of The Rings review but no, I'll bore you with this instead. Yet another way to waste time online. Hurrah!

In fact, this is one of the very worst timewasters there are online, it being very easy to actually spend hours here without actually realising it once you get to know people at the various sites which offer it. Wordox is basically Scrabble but with a vindictive streak and whichever site you play it at the rules are the same although the graphics of the game can be very different. To summarise the rules of a game is quite difficult to do in its entirety so I'll not bother any further than to give you a taster:

It is a game for 2 - 4 players which, as mentioned is rather similar to Scrabble. You have a board with letter squares, 8 word tiles in front of you and must lay these tiles down onto the board in order to make words following the usual Scrabble rules about building off of other words, not using proper names etc. The difference begins when you realise that each player has and can see the same 8 tiles in front of them and that there is no tile limit as such, but rather a score to reach before any of your opponents do...and that you can steal points your opponent has earned!

Before each game you set the score at which the game will end, typically around 30-40 points in my experience although you can set it anywhere between 20 and 100, although the short game can last just two turns and really long ones are not really recommended especially with ISP time-outs! The length of thinking time you are given can also be set here from 30 seconds to anything you like I believe, 1 minute being the normal level most people play at. 30 s
econds is fine if you're anti-social and don't want to chat during the game. ;o) You can also make tables private, invitation only and all that other junk if you wish, but anyway, once you've set the options you're ready to play...and like I said, it's like a viscious game of Scrabble.

You score points for each letter in the word, nothing special for using lots of Zs or Qs as opposed to As and Es, just for the actual word so a 6 letter word scores 6 points and a 3 letter word 3 points. Once you start playing you'll find you can do few sneaky things to increase that score like building a word directly in parallel to another word so you end up with that 6 letter word AND various 2 letter words too but you'll learn that fast. Just play someone experienced and they'll soon show you all the tricks lol. Now, the fun part of Wordox comes from stealing words and letters from your opponents. Each word you make appears in your own letter colour, your opponents' in theirs. If you use a letter from your oppenent's word when you build your own then you change the colour of that letter to your own colour, earn a point for using it AND deduct a point from their score by doing so. S's and suchlike are killers because you can slip one onto the end of a word and build off of it to completely steal the entire word as well as making another word of your own - an easy 10+ points for you AND a deduction of points from them. Evil, but fun, fun, fun! You can't just lay down an S or any other single letter though, you have to put down at least 2 tiles. Oh and unlike Scrabble, if you lay down a word which isn't in the dictionary(or at least the Wordox god's dictionary which it has to be said, sometimes feels like a different version of English :P) then you lose your turn, no need to challenge etc. as it auto-checks the word and gives you the metaphorical finger if it doesn't like it...

That's basically it in a
nutshell, Scrabble with attitude. There are some little things I haven't mentioned but if you want the full rules you can read them on the site! If you find fun people to play against then it's a lot of fun, equally if you find a sore loser to play against then it's erm, just as much fun too depending upon your mood lol. I've met a lot of fun people playing Wordox, some I keep in regular contact with outside the games themselves, others I meet with regularly just within the games themselves but consider friends so it's more than just a dumb game. The chat element can be more rewarding than the game itself to the point where the game often becomes secondary to requirements. Same with most multi-player online games I suppose but one of the benefits of Wordox over some of the others I know is that you can choose to play who you like and if you open up a table you can accept and refuse players as you like. Each player is rated in terms of their playing skill too(you get a ranking based upon games played and wins/losses which is sticky element) so you can gauge whether it is going to be worth playing someone or not which is helpful. Personally, I never turn away players who are better than me because I like a challenge but I do often turn away very low rankings as erm, again I like a challenge and generally if there are any pillocks on site they're usually very low-ranked because they have no interest in playing the game...

As with all sites like this there are good and bad people around and when you first play you'll probably come up against a few dingbats who'll want to swear and curse or jump your cyber bones before they've even introduced themselves (which you'll either see as a good thing or a bad thing I guess :P) but generally it's worth persevering with because most people at these sites are genuinely nice and are there to actually chat and play games as opposed to using it as a virtual pick up joint or opportu
nity to be offensive out of mummy and daddy's earshot. There's an option to 'block' annoying people anyway so you don't even have to look at their chat which is nice...but no one ever uses in case they miss anything to be offended by lol! The UK community seems a little quieter these days it has to be said, since the site redesign made getting to the various areas a little unfriendly (lol, heard that before someplace??) but it usually picks up in the evening.

Where to find it? Well, there's a version at uproar.co.uk and another at uproar.com(all of which comes under the flipside network now). Yes the same site in some ways but the game is actually very different. The UK site I tend to find is more chatty than the US one(no really, it seems to be the only place I've found non-chatty Americans!!) whilst the US site is actually far better presented with really cool avatars, sound effects and just a generally more attractive set-up. The UK site looks like an old 8-bit computer game. Still, the game is the same whichever side you look at and I think the UK site is the only one which actually has rankings so probably the best of the two. Definitely, definitely worth a look and a lot of fun if you've got a few minutes to spare and don't mind it stretching to hours... ;o) It is veeeery addictive, so you have been warned.

**additional games to try

Most players who have been around the game for a while start making up their own rules to add a little more challenge to things:

1) "No 'S' games" whereby the S cannot be used to steal words which makes it a lot more challenging, especially since any player who gets lucky with the letter S can virtually beat anyone without a problem in the normal game rules.

2) "No clearing." The game can be made very interesting by setting the score at a reasonable level and not allowing the board to be cleared. I didn't mention above
but if you hit one of the 8 special squares on the board (positioned where the triple word scores are on the Scrabble board) you get to clear the board and restart with a fresh one - thus protecting your points! You can agree at the start that you are not allowed to clear the board and it gets veeeeery interesting! Cramped, but interesting.

3) "Fixed word length". Where you can only play words of a predefined length - say 4 letters only.

4) "Innuendo games". Erm, well you often have to explain as you go along often but innuendo games can be fun in a Carry On movie kind of way lol.

5) "Team games". As most people use instant messengers now, particularly it seems, those at game sites, then you can play team games so two of you work together against another two. You have to arrange the seating arrangements properly of course but it can be fun. Erm, ganging up on a cheat/sore loser/general pillock is also fun using the same means in the normal game mode hehe :oP~

...and any other you can think of. Oh there was a drinking game I heard mention of but I'm not sure how you play it or whether it would be much fun to sit in front of your screen getting lashed playing what amounts to Scrabble with a twist...each to their own. :oP~

Have fun.

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