Boggle
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Boggle is a word game designed by Allan Turoff and trademarked by Parker Brothers / Hasbro, Inc.
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[edit] Rules
Play begins by randomizing a tray of 16 cubical dice, normally by shaking. Each has a different letter printed on each of its sides. The dice settle into a four by four tray such that only the top letter of each cube is visible. After they have settled into the grid, a three-minute timer is started and all players simultaneously begin the main phase of play.
Each player searches for words that can be constructed from the letters of sequentially adjacent cubes. Here, the meaning of "adjacent" includes the horizontally, vertically, and diagonally neighboring cubes. Words must be at least three letters long, may include singular and plural (or other derived forms) separately, but may not use the same letter cube more than once per word. The players record all words found by writing on their private sheets of paper. After three minutes have elapsed, all players must stop writing and the game enters the scoring phase.
Note that one cube is printed with QU. This is because Q is (almost) always followed by U in English words. If there were a Q in Boggle, it would have to appear next to a U to be usable. To give players a chance to use the Q more frequently, QU is provided as a single letter tile. However, for the purposes of scoring QU counts as two letters: squid would score two points (for a five-letter word) but is formed from a chain of only four cubes.
In the scoring phase, each player reads off his or her list of discovered words. If two or more players wrote the same word, it is discarded from all players' lists. Any player may challenge the validity of a word, in which case a previously nominated dictionary is used to verify or refute the word. For all words remaining after duplicates have been eliminated, points are awarded based on the length of the word. The winner is the player whose point total is highest. Any ties are typically broken by count of long words.
The North American National Scrabble Association publishes the Official Scrabble Players Dictionary (OSPD), which is also suitable for Boggle. This dictionary includes all variant forms of words up to eight letters in length. A puzzle book entitled 'Improve Your Boggle' offering 100 game positions was published in the UK in 2001 but is no longer in print.
| Word Length | Points |
|---|---|
| 3 | 1 |
| 4 | 1 |
| 5 | 2 |
| 6 | 3 |
| 7 | 5 |
| 8+ | 11 |
[edit] Trivia
- On the King of the Hill, Boggle is a favorite activity of Peggy Hill. In the episode "Peggy the Boggle Champ", she represents Arlen in the Texas State Boggle Championships (there are no official state/national Boggle championships in real life). In another episode, "Death and Texas", Peggy unknowingly sneaks cocaine in the sand timer to a prison inmate with whom she plays Boggle.
- Adrock of the Beastie Boys mentions the game in the song "Putting Shame In Your Game," declaring: "I'm the King of Boggle there is none higher, I get eleven points off the word quagmire".
- Using the sixteen cubes in a standard Boggle set, the list of longest words that can be formed includes Inconsequentially, Quadricentennials, and Sesquicentennials, all seventeen letter words made possible by Q and U appearing on the same face of one cube.[1]
- Daniel Dumile rapping on the Mouse and the Mask Album mentions the game in the song Mince Meat saying: "A true nerd who messed with new words since Boggle and used slang in Scrabble"
- The letters F and K each appear only once, both on the same cube, making a certain profanity impossible to spell.
[edit] Boggle game variants
Currently, numerous computer versions and variants of the game are available for play on the web and for download. Additionally, Parker Brothers has introduced several licensed variations on the game. As of 2006, only Boggle Junior and Travel Boggle (also marketed as Boggle Folio), continue to be manufactured and marketed in North America. Boggle Junior is a much simplified version intended for young children. Boggle Travel is a car-friendly version of the standard 4×4 set. The compact, zippered case includes pencils and small pads of paper, as well as an electronic timer, and notably, a cover made from a soft plastic that produces much less noise when the board is shaken.
Big Boggle, later marketed as Boggle Master and Boggle Deluxe, was arguably the most commercially successful obsolete Boggle variant introduced by Parker Brothers. It featured a 5×5 tray, and disallowed 3-letter words. Some editions of the Big Boggle set included an adapter which could convert the larger grid into a standard 4×4 Boggle grid. In the United Kingdom, Hasbro UK currently markets Super Boggle, which features both the 4x4 and 5x5 grid and an electronic timer which flashes to indicate the start and finish.[2] Despite the game's popularity in North America, no version of Boggle offering a 5x5 grid is currently marketed outside of Europe.
Other obsolete Boggle variants include:
- A version of the standard 4×4 set that included a special red "Boggle challenge cube", featuring six relatively uncommon letters. Bonus points are awarded for all words making use of the red cube.
- Body Boggle, which is more akin to Twister than it is to standard Boggle. Two players work together as a team, using their hands and feet to spell words on a large floor mat containing pre-printed Boggle letters.
- Boggle Bowl, which is somewhat similar to Scrabble in that players must form words by placing letter tiles onto a (bowl-shaped) playing area.
- Boggle was once an interactive TV game show hosted by game show veteran Wink Martindale, that aired on The Family Channel (now ABC Family) replacing the interactive version of Trivial Pursuit.
Computer games featuring similar rules can be found on web pages, often under the name "Joggle".
In the Philippines, a similar game which was first distributed in 1978 and is still in circulation up to the present is the game called "Word Factory." The game was first patented in the Philippines, and is currently being manufactured and distributed to selected retailers by the Philippines-based game manufacturer, 13 P.M. Enterprises [3]. "Word Factory" basically "innovated" on the version of Boggle back in ca. 1978: using a 5x5 grid instead of a 4x4 one, and using a plastic die instead of a wooden one. At present, the game is being marketed to other countries, targeting mostly migrant Filipino families.
[edit] Club and tournament play
While not as widely institutionally established as Scrabble, several clubs have been organized for the purpose of organizing Boggle play. Official Boggle clubs exist at a number of educational institutions, including the Dartmouth Union of Bogglers at Dartmouth College [4], the Western Oregon University Boggle Club [5], the University of Michigan Boggle Club [6], University of Delaware Boggle Club [7], and Grinnell College Boggle Club [8]. Unlike Scrabble, there is no national or international governing or rule-making body for Boggle competition and no official tournament regulations exist.
