So Simple, but VERY ADDICTIVE (Scrabble Original)

Member Name: brianlfc

Product:	Scrabble Original
Date:	26/03/01 (50 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Educational and fun to play

Disadvantages: Can be pretty boring at time

Scrabble, Ah there is another game that has stood the test of time and goes down along with Monopoly as an all-time classic, and will also be played for generations to come, as its so simple yet so challenging.

History of the game:
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Scrabble was the brainchild of an unemployed American (similar to monopoly’s inventor) called Alfred Mosher Butts, during the deeps of the great depression, he first came up with the idea of a game called “Lexico”, which was very similar to “Scrabble” but was played without a board, he had a similar points structure, where you got more points for the least commonly used letter, the way he came across this points structure by actually scanning through the front page of the “New York Times”, and working out which letters where used the most frequently and which where not used too frequently, he also came up with the idea, that too many S’s would spoil the game, so he minimised the amount of S’s used to FOUR.

In 1933 Butts was actually turned down for a patent for his new game and even more similarities with Monopoly, he was turned down by two games manufacturers (Parker Bros and Milton Bradley) when he offered them his game. So Butts decided to make the game himself, and over the next Five years, he made and sold just over 200 copies of the game and it was becoming a commercial disaster.

Then in 1938, Butts got a bit of a breakthrough, the breakthrough came in the shape of Crosswords becoming ever increasingly popular, which gave him the idea of using a board to play the game on, to interlock the letters. The game went through about 4 or 5 name changes, until Butts decided on the name “Criss-Crosswords”. He actually made the boards by pasting the blueprints onto old chessboards, and the tiles where made up of quarter inch thick pieces of Plywood.

But once again, Butts was turned down for a patent and a
lso turned down by lots of Games Manufacturers, and fed up with his constant knock backs, he decided to go back to his original job. He remained in his job until 1948, when he was approached by one of his original customers, a man called James Brunot who had a bit of a business brain, so recommended that Butts and himself would market the game more aggressively, they struck a deal, which allowed Brunot, to manufacture the game, as long as Butts got a royalty payment off each board sold.

Brunot, went on to make a few simple changes to the game and its rules, then was granted a successful application for the patent for the game, he also came up with a name change, the name he decided on lives on to this day “SCRABBLE” and was registered as a trademark in 1948.

Brunot and his wife used to make the game, in the front room off their house, and where making just 18 games a day, that was not enough, and he was beginning to struggle and they made a huge loss in profit’s for the first few years, so Brunot took a short holiday to deliberate on his thoughts and decide whether to give up. On his return, he had found out that a great deluge of orders had came through, so they decided to give it one last shot, and moved to bigger premises.

In 1952, the owner of “Macy’s” discovered the game himself, whilst on holiday and took a strong liking to it, so on his return, he ordered his staff, to order a shipment of the game, and that’s where the game took right off, by this time Brunot had found out he could not cope with the huge demand, so he licensed the manufacturing rights to an leading games manufacturer called “Selchow and Righter”.

By 1953, the games popularity had spread as far as Australia and the United Kingdom, where it was launched by “J.W.Spears and Sons” to whom acquired the rights to the game, outside the United States of America, whilst “Milton Bradley”
owned the rights in USA and Canada, a split rights ownership, to which to this day still stands.

The game is now very popular and has spawned many a different type of set, i.e. Junior Scrabble, Travel Scrabble, Deluxe Scrabble, etc and is also available on CD-Rom. Has as even developed into a world-wide competition game.

How to play the game?
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Its simple, you have a board that is 15 squares by 15 squares, 200 lettered tiles with varying value’s depending on the letters and their frequency (the same way Butts worked them out). The board has various squares on it, which are double letter, Triple Letter, Double word and Triple word; these are spread symmetrically across the board. Each player (up to four can play) is then given 7 letters, to which they place in their rack, and starting from the middle square, try and make up a word (at least 2 letters long) with their letters, they then place it on the board, to which the next person then does the same, but their word must interlock with the first word, and the game goes on like this until the end of the game, which is when there are no tiles left and no-one can make up a word.

Scrabble is a very useful game, as it helps you with words and can be very educational, especially for children, it can also be lots of fun and a game can last for hours, although you can play with a time limit on the game or even a time limit on the time each player has to take his turn. You can also try an spice the game up and play an adult version, where you play with adults obviusly and you are allowed to use swear words, this can be pretty hiliarious.

The original game itself, sells for about £15, but as I have said there are lots of other versions, to which sell at varying prices.

Oh well, if you have got this far and not fallen asleep, thank you for reading, if you have fallen asleep WAKE UP and rate it.

Summary: