When I was a kid, I had a scrabble game which included nice little score boards. But I bought this game and there are no score boards. Though playing scrabble is fun I hate maintaining score on a piece of paper. Go find another set which has scoreboards in it. enjoy!

My mom gave me this game (as I often have game nights with my siblings (& friends) at my apartment.) Her comment, "You are going to be an English teacher, you can make this fun."

So I offered the game (vaguely remembering it from childhood)to my 13 & 7 year old brothers, and 15 & 11 year old sisters. I was surprised how much they (and myself) loved it! My biggest surprise was that my brother (who is into skateboards & electric guitars) now asks for this or Phase 10 exclusively when he comes over.

Game Play:

This game is for 2-4 players. To start off each player chooses 1 tile. The person with a tile closest to "A" gets to start.

Each player starts the game with 7 letter tiles. The first player tries to make a word over the middle "star" tile on the board. Once the first word is made all other words must be made off of existing words.

This plays like a crossword puzzle, anywhere letters meet an (existing) word must be.

I strongly suggest purchasing a printed dictionary, we use a "collegiate one", and agreeing on it before game play. Anything not in this book doesn't count.

We have, so many times, had a lot of fun with this game. The other great aspect is the educational value that comes with the game. Did you know the only 2-letter x words are "xi" (a letter of the Greek alphabet) and "xu" (a Vietnamese coin roughly equivalent to a penny). How about the word "zooty" (a flashy dresser) or "wynn" (a letter of the Old English alphabet still in existence in collegiate uses.)

Also, even my 7 year old brother could get a fair amount of points with "pig" "what" and "the." He had just as much fun as anyone else and actually didn't lag too far behind in points. It's more about strategy than vocabulary.

We, including my friends and me, always have a great time playing this game and have learned a lot of words (unintentionally from game play.) I never thought I would see my brother flipping through the dictionary (exclaiming "I'm sure waxzot is a word... lol)... I intend to integrate this game into my classroom in the future.

Pros:
*Any age (8+) can play
*Educational & fun (how many games can really say that?)
*Interactive

Cons:
*It's hard to keep the tiles on the board after there are 20 or better... I am going to buy Super Scrabble (that has raised corners to keep the tiles in place)
*Also it would be nice to have more tiles and a larger board (which Super Scrabble does)

Scrabble is a favorite game with my family. My parents played with us when we were young. My 8 siblings and I continue to play when we're together - we even play online. It's educational and fun too!

Scrabble (Scrabble: Classic Edition) is an entertaining way both to stimulate young brains and to keep mature brains developing. This kind of play is beneficial. There is nothing wasteful about the time spent playing Scrabble. (Unless you are playing with someone who spends too long trying to think of a word.)

There is some correction needed on the description of Scrabble. One is the age limit! It is recommended that a player be eight years of age to enter the Scrabble community; but with today's child prodigies, I think this age for eligibility could be lowered to six. Since the pieces are tiny, and the wood looks delicious, it is not safe to leave around where it could entice little ones to eat them; otherwise younger brilliant children could use the tiles for their enlightenment when the game is not being used by the conventional players. The upper age for playing Scrabble is ninety-nine. I don't know why one-hundred-year-olds would want to give up Scrabble!

With the widespread concern about the waste of fuel, maybe it is time to play more Scrabble. This game is fun, and it has been around unchanged for about fifty years. People still love it. It requires nothing but two, three, or four brains and a comfortable place to spread the board. Every household needs a Scrabble game. Despite its longstanding popularity it is still reasonably priced. It would make an ideal gift for many occasions.

Unfortunately, this low cost Scrabble board has no insert to secure the letters so, at the slightest jolt they go all over the place.
I would not buy again.

R Boyer