LITERATI IS DEFINATLY MY BUDDY (Yahoo! Literati)

Member Name: pornstarx2

Product:	Yahoo! Literati
Date:	01/08/06 (1879 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: CAN MAKE FRIENDS WITH PEOPLE, IMPROVES YOUR SPELLING

Disadvantages: VERY ADDICTIVE & CAN GET VERY TIME CONSUMING

I Actually found literati by mistake about 4 years ago I was addicted to playing games on the net & used to love playing monopoly but I went to play one day & the site had been closed down & I could not find a new site where you didn't have to pay to play & that's when I noticed yahoo did games for free. I have had a yahoo email account for as long as I can remember & never really paid much attention to anything to else. But when needs must you begin to look everywhere & I began on all the card games I knew like Go fish, Blackjack & Patients which I found out all had different American names. I then came across Literati, which after a couple of games I interpreted as scrabble. Scrabble is a game I used to play with my gran & granddad & I always remember her checking the dictionary on nearly every single word!
After a few games I really started to enjoy literati not only because you can play with literally anyone anywhere you can keep putting letters down making words up & sometimes you can't actually believe that you've actually made up a word & its worth quite a lot of points.
You can access literati on www.yahoo.com/games & obviously you have to be a member of yahoo. If you're not you can't play but you can become a member for free after completing a couple of painless online forms. My actual login is Stephgirlx2 but I have made lots of logins up on profiles & I usually play as the moongoddess264.
I swap & change according to rating because every time you win a game you get some points & the more points you get the better rating you get & the more people want to play you.
Ok so there is the background now I'll explain how Literati works as it has some differences to scrabble.

Where do I play ???
Once you get on to the literati page you will be faced with the choice of playing on the social boards which are meant just for fun & a bit of a chat you still get rated but its not meant to be serious. You then have the beginner table, intermediate table & advanced table I always go to the beginner table but to be honest it doesn't really matter because people just go to any sometimes the advanced has some pretty good players but the beginner & intermediate is really a mixed bag. Once you have chosen one of these areas you will be faced with a list of about 10 different rooms & it shows how many people are playing in each I usually go for the most full to get a good game. The game gets full around 125 players & then you can no longer enter that room. If you go to yahoo.co.uk it will show just UK tables but in the day & early evening there doesn't seem to be many people in these.

How to play
Once you get on to the room you want you will be faced with a list of numbered tables, which have already been opened by other people, & as long as these aren't private you are free to join them. The tables are played in either a two, three, four or five player mode obviously the more people the quicker the game will be. You can also have a quick game by going to a table where the turns are limited to a certain time per hand but you do have to be a bit more experienced for the quicker hands. If none of them take your fancy why not open your own table, which I usually do. To do this you click on create table & then you can choose how many players you want at your table & then if it is rated or not & if you want to have a challenge stage.
RATED - This means you gain points at the end of the game & UNRATED - Means you are just playing for fun because who ever wins or losers will not lose or gain any points I used to like playing on this mode when I first joined the game to get a bit more practise.
CHALLENGE - This is a good mode if you know your stuff (which I do not but like to play for a bit of fun) It is quite straight forward once someone puts down a word if you don't think it Is in the dictionary you hit challenge & it checks it, If the word does exist then you miss a go but if it doesn't exist then the player who laid it will miss a turn. Yahoo games check the words with dictionary.com.
If you do not care which table or in which mode you play you can click on the button play now & yahoo will allocate you the first vacant table, I don't usually bother doing this because it means you cant have any option on any of the settings.
When you are playing the game in any mode I thought I just better let you know that you can pass on any of your turns if you think you have horrible letters & want a fresh hand you simply click pass & then all your letters come up in a small box this is where you click on the letters you want to get rid of & then they will go back into the bag & new ones will be given to you. There Is no guarantee that you wont get any of those letters back especially if there are only a couple of letters left until the end of the game.

Who wins ?
Once all the letters are gone from the bag it is like a race against time to get rid of all the letters in your hand especially if the scores are close. This is the part I hate because I usually have all consonants if you are left with a wild tile or like an e or s you have it made but if not you could be on to a loser. Whoever drops all there letters has the best chance of winning because all the other players letters left have there point totals taken off their ain score, which sounds ok if you have only 1point tiles but if you are left with a Z or an X you get 5 points deducted & in literati this can mean a lot. The person with the most points wins the game!


The board
Well this is quite similar to Scrabble but just looks different but the principle is the same the board is a grey greenie sort of colour with the main middle square & the odd double word circle which is blue & says 2w then there is the triple word score which is a circle with grey 3w in & there are the double letter score & that says 2l in brown & then the triple letter score which is a black 3L. It is very good if you can get a triple letter & triple word all in one work because the letter gets tripled before the word does do you get maximum points.
The board is a 15x15 grid & looks a bit dull & could do with being a bit brighter but I think there are just enough squares not too many to get bored with.
On the left hand side of the board it has 7 tabs down the side
START GAME
Which is quite obvious but everyone has had to hit this before the game will begin.
RESIGN
Another quite explanatory button but once you press this it isn't all over so don't get worried if you hit this in error you get another box saying do you really want to resign. This is good because in some gains it just kicks you out which is so annoying.
STAND UP
This button can be used if you want or move seats or if you just wish to spectate & not play, as it will keep you in the game but not actually at the table. You can't stand up mid game though
TABLE TYPE
This can only be accessed by the host of the table it is a drop down menu of either public, protected or private. Public means anyone can join, private means people can come to the table but they must be invited to take a seat so they can watch but not play & Private is a good option if you're in a serious game or if you are playing with friends it basically means no one can access your table unless they get an invite.
INVITE
This is also another button only to be used by the host once the host opens a new table you can invite people to your table by clicking this a list of people who are on this game will come up & you can invite who you want. Their names & ratings will come up so you can see your opposition (this does not apply to the social games though only on the beginner, intermediate & expert)
BOOT
This is also quite obvious if haven't started a rated game you can boot someone say if you don't wish to play with them or they wont click start, but only if you're the host.
You cannot boot someone in mid game if it is rated.
SET TIMER
This again is a host button it is good in some ways & bad in others the good thing is you can make the game speedier as you can change how long each person has to take there go the least being 1 minute & the most being what ever has you can choose to have no timer which believe me is sooo boring you always get a beginner who wants to take all day or people who just take the mickey. I know it sounds mean but you don't want to wait all day for a game to end. When I was younger I know it sound bad but I used to deliberately go on no timer & make people resign so I'd get the points I know it's stupid but I was young & silly & just wanted to annoy, how ridiculous I sound now but I used to leave it for ages & come back & say I was on the toilet just to wind people up! DOH!
At the bottom of the screen there is also three little check boxes which are sort of like your personal settings the first one is Allow kibitz which means people who aren't playing can look at your letters! If you UN tick this they can't I don't see the point in it so I uncheck it always because you always get the odd trouble maker reading out your letters. The second one is Kibitz which is if you come to the table not to play if you tick this box you can have a look at everyone's letters unless they have unchecked that box. The third is sound which you can turn on with a tick it is good because whenever it is your turn or someone joins you r table it does a small beep & its good if you are working on some thing else once it beeps you take your go.
Then at the very bottom there are two small buttons one called help, which leads you to the help menu, & the second one, which is quit & if you hit this it automatically takes you out of the room.
One the right hand side of the board there is your name & a small cartoon image which you can left click on & it changes to match an image similar to your own either male or female or blonde or brunette, glasses or no glasses hair up or down.
The next part depends on which mode you play if you play without any challenge which I prefer you get just the simple submit to add your word or pass to change your letters & move on to the next persons turn. If you choose to play a challenge game there will be two boxes above this one saying accept which you would hit if it was a word you knew was in the dictionary & then the challenge button if you didn't think they had put a correct word.
There is also a large box t the bottom of the board, which is used as a chat box, & it also displays the points you get & the people who enter the room.

The scoring
When you first play you have a rating of 1500 & each time you win will you gain points there is no set points if the person you are playing has a low rating & you have a high one it takes two points from them & gives you one, but if you are playing a person with a high rating you get more points. That's is why people with high ratings don't want to know the people with the low ratings.
Once you have played 10 times you come of provisional which is a grey colour then you become a colour a bit like ciao.
0-1199 qualifies you to be a murky green colour
1200-1499 will make you a light blue
1500-1799 makes you purple
1800-2099 allows you to go orange (the highest colour I have made it to)
2100+ once you get here you are a victorious red
The letters you get are very similar to Scrabble the difficult letters have a higher value.
The normal letters that are easy to make a word are all worth one point you know the ones like A, T, S, E need I go on. These are a yellow colour. Then there are the letters worth 2 points, which are on a blue background, & they are letters like H, P
You then have the letter letters worth 3 points in a greenie colour a bit like a grass stain on your jeans green & they are F, K & Y.
Then you have the bright green coloured square worth 4 points & they are the hardish letters to make into a word such as V & W & then there are the difficult letters such as Z, X, J & Q, which are purple, & worth 5 points.
Of course if you put these down on a triple or double letter the points double & triple & its even better if you put them down on a triple letter score & a triple word score.
There is also about 4 wild tiles in the bag as well these are blank white tiles & are worth nothing but you can type any letter on it (caps lock must be off)
BINGO!!!!! No I am not getting confused & talking about another game bingo bonus is worth 34 points & can be gained if you put down all your letters. Usually you can do this at the beginning of the game if you have a good hand but if you can put it down later on over a double word that's when you get big points!!!

The players
Each person playing has a nickname & aviator which is supposed to look a bit like them, the players on yahoo are very friendly & range from about 13 to 80 you get them all there are some very good players & some not so good players but you can easily match up with someone similar to you level by playing someone with a similar rating to yourself. I know it sounds stupid but sometimes I try to play a lower rating if I have had a bad streak just so I know I will win, but when you lose you feel even worse !!!!
To chat to another player you can either type in the main hat window or you can double left click on someone's name for a private chat once you have done this a grey box will come up which is very helpful it tells you how many games they have played, how many they have won, how many they have lost & how many games they have just abandoned. It also tells you their streak so if they are on a winning streak beware !! They must be having a good day lol. If their streak is minus then they must be having a good day & it is time to play them !!!
Many of the people who play literati will make small talk if you speak to them but they are not very big conversation starters a lot are there just for the game which is nice so you can all just get on with it but not so good if your after a chin wag concentration is the key in literati.



The cheaters
It is a shame but there always has to be a cheat in any game doesn't there? Believe me literati is no different in the main chat box everyone is always leaving links to cheats & to be honest I have even downloaded one before purely for speculation lol & to be honest I thought it was good at first but then I got bored & thought what is the point to this !!! I probably used it about twice & good players can usually tell & start asking what words mean doh! Ever since that though I have never bothered I downloaded the cheat called literati buddy it doesn't occupy much space on your hard drive so I suppose that's a good thing but it really is very clever. I was quite surprised when I first saw it, once you log on to it brings up a game board exactly like the literati board & you have to put the letters in your hand & copy the words of the main board on to the cheat board & it shows you exactly where to put your word & how many points it will be worth. I was very shocked at how in depth the whole thing was & how it came up with such a simple word you should have been thinking yourself.

Why I love Literati ?
Well who couldn't I love literati because it is so simple to follow & you get a real kick out of coming up with a big word you didn't even think you knew. I like the fact you can play with real people & even get into a conversation with them. I think the game is quite educational & competitive everyone likes to win! I would defiantly recommend this game to anyone looking to pass a couple of hours.
The only downside to the whole thing is that you can just get so carried away with the game you could be playing until the early hours of the morning, which is not a good thing for anyone.

I apologise if anyone believes I have this review purely on yahoo but I have only ever experienced literati on yahoo & don't know where else you can play this online socially but if anyone knows of anywhere please drop me a line & I will gladly check it out & maybe give you a game ;-)

Summary: GOOD GAME!