I don't think I know anyone that hasn't played Scrabble at least once! It seems to be one of those games which has stood the test of time, and although new, supposedly improved, versions of the game come out every now and again, me and my family believe that the Original Scrabble is the best and it's certainly the one that we usually opt for out of the 5 or so versions of Scrabble we have in the house. The Mattel Scrabble Original can be bought very easily because it's available in toyshops, supermarkets, online - and even in my local newsagent. It usually costs between £10 - £15 depending on where you get it - but I note it can be bought on Amazon £11.99, which includes postage and packaging. For the amount of times I've played this game with my family, it really is very worth that kind of money because it lasts and it just doesn't get boring (we are geeks though!!!).

Scrabble can be played by up to about six players - and indeed the Mattel version does give you six racks. Theoretically more could play, but I think it would get boring because there would be too long a gap between turns. Ideally I think this game is best if you have 4 players because that seems to make it flow the best and makes it challenging but not too long and drawn out. The original version has one of the smallest boards in terms of the number of squares it has, being 15 squares by 15 squares - and so a total of 225 squares. The board comes folded over so it fits within the box and so it's family compact - although there are travel versions if you want something smaller. In the packet you also get a green material bag which has 100 plastic letter tiles within it. The only thing you need to provide is some paper to write the score on.

The idea of the game is to score points by creating words which interact with each other on the Scrabble board. Each tile has a letter written on it, and a corresponding number of points. The aim is to make a word using your Scrabble tiles and to put it on the board in a way that nets you the most points. All letters are not equal, and so letters that are easier to use, such as a, e, i, o, u are only worth 1 point, whereas J is worth 8 points and Q is worth 10 points. You start off with 7 tiles (which you pick from the bag without looking) and then every time you get rid of tiles by making a word then you top out your tiles to 7 again. On the board there are certain bonus squares which, if you use, will net you more points. So, for example, there are double letter, triple letter, double word, triple word etc. scores which can boost your points considerably. And if you manage to get rid of all of your 7 letters in one go then you get a bonus of 50!

Playing Scrabble is not only fun, but also educational, because it improves spelling and also helps you to learn the meaning for new words. If a person puts down a word that you don't recognise or that you don't think is spelled correctly then you can challenge it - and this is a good way of learning. The word that I recently challenged that I didn't think was a word was "Qi". Incidently, you can buy a Scrabble dictionary, but a normal dictionary does just as well - and more often than not we just use dictionary.com.

Overall, I think Scrabble is a great game, which is why it's stayed around so long. And, in my opinion, the Mattel Original version is the simplest and also the best.