Upwords and onwards - and New Travel Upwords (Updated!) (Upwords)

Member Name: scottish20

Product:	Upwords
Date:	09/08/01 (749 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Easy to play (simple rules), Extra twist on Scrabble

Disadvantages: My Dad hates the noise the tiles make and shouts!!

Scrabble is a great game but 'Upwords' is in a league of its own. A simple word game taken a step further and yet still remains really simple and great fun.

The idea is the same as with Scrabble. Each of the players (as many as 4) has 7 letter counters and has to place a word on the board in the same manor as Scrabble. But letters can be place on top of others to change the word for example 'time' can be changed to 'tile' and then to 'mile'. Or the word can be completely change, e.g. 'plant' can be altered to make 'smile' just so long that any words leading from it still make sense. Letters can only be added in one plane of play, down or across. The only other restriction is that only 5 tiles can be placed on top of each other although we once played without the 5-high restriction just for a variation.

The scoring is really simple. If the letter is one tile high off the board i.e. no other tiles beneath it, then it scores 1 point. If it's two tiles high it scores 2 points and so on. If a word is made entirely of tiles flat on the board with no others beneath any, then the word scores double. The letters Q, J, X, V and Z also score double regardless of their height on the board - a Q tile with 3 other tiles underneath it will now score 8.

Scoring can be huge - I think our highest ever has been about 350 with the highest score on a single turn being 38.

The board and the tiles are made of tough heard wearing plastic and are designed to fit together to allow successful stacking - in fact, we have managed to stack every single tile in a tower! The board snaps in two to fit back in the box and the letters are held neatly in a little drawstring bag.

Overall this game is fab. Not only educational but great fun and easy to play. It's a great game for older children and adults

I played Travel Upwords for the first time today and I have to say, I am very
impressed. It is an exact miniature version of the Original (except for the clever little turn style thingy!). The letters bag and the letter holders neatly fit inside the fold-away box. The only problem is that the letters don't stack very well - when there are 5 letters high, they tend to slide off, especially from the edge of the board...so unfortunately no 100-tile tall towers!! I'm off to Greece in 10 days so I can test it out for real!

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