Word games for the Wordly Wise

(Soured from Fox)

The progression of man is one of ideas built upon ideas and for many a millennia the way it has been done has been the written word. Thus with the fate of mankind so heavily influenced by the written word. We at Toytag recommend the following word games to make the practice of learning words not only educational but fun too for the whole family. 

Bananagrams is a word game for up to 8 players and thus is great for families and gatherings. Basically it is Scrabble with a speed element but removes the scoring. This is because in Banananagrams, the complexity of your words do not matter. The person who manages to use up all their tiles when the common word pool has less tiles than the amount of players wins.

Gameplay is short and sweet, players each draw the same number of tiles to reveal the lettered sides. Each player then begins arranging the letters to form words, which must be connected in a grid format. When a player uses up all of their tiles, they call out "Peel!," and each player must draw a new tile from the pool of remaining tiles. If during play, a player has a letter or letters that they do not want, then the player can announce "Dump!" and exchange any letter for three tiles from the common pool. The first player to have placed all of his or her tiles into their word grid calls out "Bananas!" and is declared the winner. 

Last Letter is a party game that uses words as a core element that plays from 2-61 players. Although 4-6 or so would probably make for a better game.

Gameplay is simple. Each player gets five cards and then one card is placed in the middle as the discard pile. Then one player calls out a word that is related to the picture on the card. Then as quickly as everybody can, players will simultaneously call out a word that relates in some way to the picture on one of their cards but with the last letter of the word used before on the card in the discard pile. Example, Fudge then Eel. The first to do so correctly and places the new card in the discard pile is able to get rid of the card from their hand. First person to discard all their cards wins.

Zip it is the word game on the go with even its score pad innovatively printed on the carrying case with the zippers used as a marker for the score track.

Gameplay is as follows, each player takes 12 dice and form words on a grid. The first to use all their dice wins. A game of Zip It can be as short as 20 seconds. A game that is portable, takes up little space, is quick to play and allows for wordplay anywhere, anytime.  

Yottsugo is another unique mix of a word game with a puzzle game. Players will work together by first taking a clue card then with small clues given within the clue card, try to figure out the puzzle of how the words are arranged. The arrangement for example can be so the same words apprear on the horizontal and vertical axis.

This is a game that can be played in a very relaxed way like a Sudoku puzzle. It can be left out on the table to be worked on throughout the day or with a timing element if one wishes. 

E: huibin@toytag.com

Zhou Huibin is a smith of words who majored in Philosophy & History from the University of Western Australia and whose life has followed the flow of his hobbies. He seeks continual contentment in his ponders, reading, writing, painting and board games which fills almost all of his time.