Upping the Ante on Big Boggle

Everyone knows Boggle, one of my all time favorite games. Also, a game at which I have barely ever lost.

For those of you who don’t know, Boggle is when you have a 4×4 grid of letters, and you have to make a list of words with letters that are adjacent or diagonally adjacent. In regular Boggle, the minimum number of letters is three, so HE would not count but THE would. In Big Boggle, the grid is 5×5 and the letter minimum is four, so HE and THE would not count, but THEN or THEY would. It’s a combination of quick eyes, quick hands to beat the timer, and a good vocabulary. When I am at home with my family, we usually play at least once or twice a week. Lately, I’ve been eschewing 4-letter words and just doing 5-letter words, because I see so many 4-letter words and those only score you one point, as opposed to 5-letter words, which, if only you have them on your list, give you 2 points, 6-letter words for 3 points, and so on.

So tonight, my dad and I played up to a preset 500 points, using only 5-letter words or more.

It was insane.

After about 10 rounds, I beat my dad 510-250 (or something like that) but the ante was upped with the five-letter limit. It was also much easier to navigate each board, without worrying about writing down ARTS, RATS, STAR, etc., when A-R-T-S appear in the grid.

It also made for some longer and more exciting words.

Over the course of the game, I got two  eight-letter words, rare in the ordinary game of Boggle, seasoner and reasoner, and a record nine-letter word, reasoners. I also got some fun seven-letter words I would not have ordinarily picked up on, like treason, artiste, contain, nunnery, quality, peerage, deifies, and deified, as well as some uncommon shorter words, like arcane, ardent, incest, swain, tattoo, sarin (a type of poison) and raglan (a style of sleeve).

So there’s one way to kill an evening.

Also, I still have about 8-9 spots open for my That’s So Jacob 16 snail mails in 2016, so comment below with your email address, let’s connect, and I will send you something fun in the mail for the new year!

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Emily Litella: Another Fun New Word Game

Not much happened to me today, and I’m not in the mood to do anything because I’m kind of lonely and there’s so much wrong in the world, but I decided to make a fun new word game which I call Emily Litella.

Emily Litella was a character from classic Saturday Night Live, played by the late great Gilda Radner. She would appear on the Weekend Update segment with an opinion piece based on misheard news, and would proceed to ramble about it until corrected, usually by an annoyed Jane Curtin. Subjects included Russian Jewelry (that’s Russian Jewry, Emily), and Making Puerto Rico a Steak (that’s making Puerto Rico a state, Emily). She would end her report by saying “Oh, that’s very different. Never mind.”

So today, I decided to do just that; Litell-ify some headlines by changing just one letter. You can do it too.

Here are mine:

From FOXnews.com:

Security Forces bill school massacre planner in Pakistan shootout.

Emily Litella: How much did that cost?

Experts skeptical N. Korea guilty of Pony hack

Emily Litella: Well that’s not very nice! They must really be as hungry as a horse to do that!

Wake held for 1 of 2 cups gunned down in attack

Emily Litella: I thought shooting whiskey meant drinking it, not having a funeral for it!

Try it. You might laugh a little.

 

Dropout: The All-New Word Game!

So, last night as I was trying to get to sleep (spoiler alert: it didn’t happen), my curious and hyperactive mind created a brand new word game, which I’m calling DROPOUT.

How to Play:

1. Start with a 7-letter word. For example, dropout.

2. Drop the first letter of the word and replace it with another. Using the example word above, I would drop d and replace it with c to get outcrop.

3. (Here’s where it gets tricky). Take the second letter of the original word (which is r), drop and replace. From outcrop, I would drop the r and add an s to create copouts (or octopus, actually).

4. Keep dropping letters of the original word, in order, until you have a completely original 7-letter word. Then, congratulations! You win!

Here’s the chain I made for dropout:

DROPOUT – D + C =

OUTCROP – R + S =

COPOUTS – O + A =

UPCOAST – P + N =

TOUCANS – O + H =

STAUNCH – U + E =

CHASTEN – T + G =

CHANGES. (Ironic!)

And voila! There you have it.

Some auxiliary rules:

1. You do not have to use all new letters. You can replace a letter with one you’ve already used or dropped.

2. You can use the same letter more than once in a word.

3. Proper nouns are not allowed, but plurals are.

4. Your final word can share letters with the original word, provided they’ve been dropped and readded.

To all you word gamers/procrastinators out there: it came from my brain, and you’re welcome.

Have a great morning.