Language is a fundamental aspect of human nature. This magic trick we do, where we encode our thoughts into tangible patterns that allow them to transfer to other minds, is without precedent or parallel elsewhere in the animal kingdom. Despite numerous attempts and a handful of charlatans, no one h𝓡as ever legitimately managed to teach an animal any kind of language.

Perhaps it’s unsurprising, then, that words should feature prominently in the games we make. If you’re a fan of Scrabble, one of the 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:most successful word games of all time, here are some similar games that have you using cards and tiles to make words in interesting ways, and 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:teach kids♔ how to work with words and expand th🎶eir vocabulary.

Most Scrabble-like
Upwords
Player Count
2 - 4
Age Recommendation
8+
Length per Game
90 minut𝕴es 🌸

This extremely Scrabble-like word tile placement game freshens the classic scrabble experience by making a single brilliant change to it🌼s gameplay—allow🌟ing you to overwrite letters already on the board.

Pros & Cons
  • Strongly resembles the classic game while still providing its own spin on it
  • The scoring system is finely-tuned and well balanced
  • It?s easy to make big, interesting plays

Every scrabble player knows that one feeling. The agony of looking at a board, having the perfect idea for a word to make with your letters, but not being able to because what’s there is just one letter away from what you need to play that awesome move. If you’re looking for catharsis fo🌳r that feeling, Upwords is the game for you.

At first glance, this game seems to be identical to Scrabble, with a nearly identical board and hands of seven tiles, but there is an important difference. In this game, if you want to change a letter on the board, you can just stack one of your tiles right on top of it! As long as all the words remain valid, you’re perfectly fine. Thi♊s single change makes interesting plays much easier to find and execute and leads to a𝕴n ever-changing board and a delightfully chaotic game.

Fastest Game
Bananagrams

This quick and simple word game g𒅌ives every player a selection of tiles and charges them with making a valid crossword grid as quickly as they can. Once the endgame is triggered, the first person to have a🎃 valid crossword with all of their tiles wins.

Pros & Cons
  • Fast and simple
  • Your grid is separate from everyone else?s and you can remake it at will
  • Not for those who dislike time pressure

Another game about making words from letter tile꧂s, Bananagrams gives each player a much larger set of tiles than Scrabble does (the exact amount depending on the number of players) and charges them with creating their own crossword out of them.

There are no turns. Play is simultaneous, as the players race against each other to use all of their tiles. If that proves impossible, there are mechanics that allow them to trade in tiles or take new ones in hopes of enabling more valid words, but that comes at the cost of giving yourself mo✱re tiles to use. This game is fast, exciting, and tense. If you’re looking for a quick and simple word game, this is the game for you.

Best Cooperative Game
Illiterati

This equally fast word game takes most of the core mechanics of scrabble and translates them to a cooperative environment, where yo🦩u and your friends form a unite🥀d front against the game itself and the bad guys lurking within it.

Pros & Cons
  • Fast and Simple
  • Rewards teamwork while requiring everyone to pull their weight
  • Adjustable difficulty
  • Bad luck can create some very frustrating moments

Perhaps you don’t care for Scrabble’s competitive nature. Maybe you have a taste for cooperative boaꦺrd games and would rather work together with your friends to lay word tiles. If that’s the case, Illiterati is the game for you.

This race against the clock will have you and your friends fighting to make the words you need as quickly as you can, exchanging letters with one another to help each other out, even as the bad guys use the mechanics of the game to try to sabotage you. If you have🔥 a group that loves to play cooperative games together, this is the game for you!

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Best Adaptation
Wordle - The Party Game
Player Count
2 - 4
Age Recommendation
12+

Perhaps the simplest game on this list, Wordle the Party Game takes a classic video game and translates it to a multiplayer tabletಞop experience that recreates its basic mechanics. Take turns picking and guessing words in this wonderful party game!

Pros & Cons
  • An extremely faithful adaptation
  • Neither super quick nor super long
  • Everyone gets a turn to pick the word

Based on 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:one of the most popular new word games out there, Wordle the Party Game lets you recreate the famous five-letter word-guessing game in a competitive, tabletop environment. Players take 🤪turnꦇs being the Host, and picking a word for everyone else to guess using familiar Wordle mechanics.

Th♒eir guesses are hidden, so they don’t have to worry about helping their opponents out. Players must guess the word as quickly as possible to do well in each round, with the best overall player winning in 🌱the end.

Best Guessing Game
A Little Wordy
Player Count
2
Age Recommendation
8+
Length per Game
💜 ꧙ 5+ minutes

This cutely themed word game has both players trying to guess what word the other one made from thꦜeir set of tiles, strategically using hints to try to figure the word out while minding the price they pay for each hint they use.

Pros & Cons
  • Cute theming
  • Well-crafted gameplay mechanics
  • Fast
  • Can end a bit too quickly if one player gets the other?s word right away

This bird-themed word game has players competing to collect the most berries as they ꧑attempt to guess what word their opponent chose from a known set of tiles. Players can use cards to receive hints on each of their turns, but using these gives their opponent points, so they have to use them ꦉsparingly and make them count.

Almost everything about this game is impeccably balanced. Hints come at a very real cost, but are still clearly worth getting if you use them wisely. The only place luck enters the picture is the assignment of tiles at the beginning, where there is a small chance of you getting a set that only has a few possible words in it, which can end the game quite quickly in your op💯ponent’s favor. That doesn’t happen often, though. Most of the time, it’ll be down to your own cleverness to pick a difficult-to-find word from those that can be made from your tiles.

Best Pacing
Quiddler

This simple word game has players fighting to make words that both score points and empty their hands, even as they’re made to draw ever-increasing numbers of cards each round. It’s up to them to spot the best word options they can, becaus🔥e any cards left behind in the end will cost them points.

Pros & Cons
  • An amazing sense of escalation
  • Stays tense throughout
  • Well-thought-out letter cards with various two-letter combinations
  • A bad hand can totally screw you over though no fault of your own

This card game tasks players with making words out o🎉f the letter cards they draw, ideally finding a combination that wi𒀰ll allow them to empty their hand completely. This game is played over the course of several rounds, with the starting hands getting bigger as the game goes on. This gives players more options, but it also means they have more cards to get rid of! It also means each round is worth more points than the last, which is a great way to keep the game’s outcome from being decided too early.

This game is♈ simple, but there are so many tiny bits of genius design sprinkled in it. The way it escalates, the two-le💫tter combination cards, the way the game rewards their use, the prioritization of making lots of words over making massive ones, it all makes Quiddler a blast to play!

Most Competitive Board Game
Play On Words

This elegant and extremely well-crafted word game has players making words from a common yet ever-changing, pool of cards. Not only can they ꦰmake new words, they can also steal each other’s words, and the points that come with them, by finding ways to add onto them. This can be a cut-throat game, but it’s tons of fun!

Pros & Cons
  • Brilliant core mechanics
  • Well-thought-out letter cards
  • Completely screwing over your opponents is a delight
  • Those same gochya moments are less fun when they happen to you

Using a common pool of letters to significantly mitigate the major luck component that drags down so many word games, Play On Words h💦as players fighting to make new words f🦋rom the cards in its shared pool, while giving them the option to steal each other’s words by adding onto them.

That last bit is what makes this game truly special. In other word games, you don’t have to worry about losing points once you’ve gotten them, but in t𝐆his game, you have to be careful to ensure the words you make are going to be hard to steal—a difficult task co🌠nsidering how generous this game is with how it allows other players to insert letters into words in order to steal them. If you want something fiercely competitive with a lot less luck than other word games, this game is for you.

Most Delightful
Unspeakable Words Deluxe Edition

This card game starts out pretty similar to the word-making card games above, but as the endgame nears, it goes completely bananas, allowing players to make nonsense words unchallenged. That’s just one ꩲof several goofy elements to this delightful game.

Pros & Cons
  • Amusingly strange scoring system
  • Surprisingly interesting sanity mechanics
  • Great art
  • Lots of cool Cthulhu Mythos references
  • Balanced, while still carrying the possibility of using crazy made-up words
  • Major luck component
  • Actively disincentivizes making big, long, cool words
  • This disincentive is strongest precisely when you get the power to go ham

This game has you assembling words from the cards in your hand, but, unlike other word games, where you always want to make the longest or highest-scoring word you can, this game forces you to be careful. After each word, you must make a sanity check that’s more likely to fail if the word is worth more points, and if it does fail, you progress to𓃲ward being eliminated.

By far the best part of this game is what happens when you only have one strike left. As long as you’re just one roll away from utter madness, your opponents cannot challenge the words you make, meaning you can play any combination of cards and declare that it’s a real word. The only thing stopping you is the fact that you’re now one bad roll away from being 🔯eliminated. This makes for some delightfully difficult choices.

FAQ

What is the game similar to Scrabble?

The most Scrabble-esque games on this list are the ones at the beginning of the list: Bananagrams, Upword, and Illiterati, all of which cen꧙ter around the use of letter tiles to create a crossword grid.

Is Scrabble or Bananagrams better?

It depends on what you’r𒁃e looking for. Scrabble 𝓰is slower and more cerebral, while Bananagrams is faster and more frantic. Scrabble rewards deep thinking, while Bananagrams has you balancing that with quick thinking.

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