There is a reason Scrabble has stood the test of time, it’s fun and educative at the same time. It’s a game to play with friends and family to have fun together while improving brain function and testing vocabulary skills.
What games can you play with Scrabble tiles? Most Scrabble tiles games are played among the students to improve cognitive thinking and linguistic skills. They are very easy and almost use similar rules as the regular Scrabble.
- Boggle
- Guggenheim
- Last Word
- PDQ
- Word Ladders
- Word Mastermind
- Anagram
- Super Scrabble
- Clabbers
- Bananagrams
- Duplicate Scrabble
- Solitaire Scrabble
Spelling and word games like Scrabble are quite similar to each other. Here are frequently asked questions about different games you can play using Scrabble tiles.
Can you use Scrabble tiles to play Bananagrams?
Yes, Bananagrams is similar to standard Scrabble. The main difference between the games is no board, so the tiles are placed directly on the table to create words connecting just like regular Scrabble.
When playing Bananagrams, the player who manages to use all their tiles wins the game, unlike in Scrabble where players have to compute scores of unplayed tiles to determine the winner.
What other games can you play with Scrabble tiles?
Boggle: Each player draws 16 to 25 random Scrabble tiles, and then place the tiles on a 4 by 4 or 5 by 5 grid square board. Set a timer for a reasonable period, and compete to form all the words possible diagonally, horizontally or vertically.
Guggenheim: Start by deciding on five categories of words to form. For example, words for Countries, Fruits, Months, Weekdays, Animals and others.
The game is played on a 5 by 5 board, where players form words for each category, starting with the five tiles they drew at the start of the game without duplicating. A duration of time is given to each player to form a word.
Last Word: The game has cards named with categories of words that need to be formed on a grid board. A player can pick a random tile and then flip over a card with a certain word category.
For example, a card is labelled waterbodies. Every player will start to signal any word from the category on the card that starts the letter the player picked.
PDQ: It’s a card game where the dealer has to flip three tiles consecutively, and every turn begins with three sets of different tiles. The objective of is to be the first player to say a word that has those letters.
Word Ladders: Players have to choose two words with the same length and reverse of each other. Players move from one word to another by changing one tile at a time.
Word Mastermind: The game is played in pairs. One player has to think about a five-lettered word that repeats no letters.
When tiles are used, one player chooses the tiles to form the word, and one player must cover the word, or it can be placed face down. The opponent player should duplicate the word by guessing the five tiles without duplicating.
Anagram: It’s a word game where tiles are placed face-down, and one tile is turned at a time until no tiles are left for turning. At this point, any player can say a word that has at least four letters and formed from the pool of tiles turned or add one new tile to a word that exists on the board.
The player who mentions the word must pick all the tiles that formed it and put them in front of their yard. The player who receives the highest score from the collected tiles wins the game.
Super Scrabble: The game is played with the same rules as official Scrabble, but the only difference is it uses a square grid larger than that of Standard Scrabble (21 by 21 as opposed to 15 by 15 for standard Scrabble).
The game was first introduced in 2004 as a variant of Scrabble, but it has more letter tiles, space, and more bonuses to be scored.
Clabbers: It was introduced as a variant to Scrabble game that follows all the rules as regular scrabble apart from one exception. The word formed in Clabbers is an anagram of another word.
For instance, the word CINEMA is a valid word in Clabber because it’s an anagram of the word ICEMAN.
Bananagrams: It is similar to regular Scrabble, but it’s played without a board. Once players use all their tiles, they have to say the word banana to win the game.
Duplicate Scrabble: In this game, players compete to form the highest scoring word within the stipulated time for each round. Players use the same tiles but only get the points from their own words.
When no tile (vowel or consonants) is left, the player with the highest points emerges the winner.
Solitaire Scrabble: The game is played the same way as regular Scrabble, but the difference being that the game is played by one player. The player competes to form the highest points within a fixed duration of time.
Games with Scrabble Tiles: Conclusion
All Scrabble variants use the same equipment and follow similar game mechanics. The games you can play with Scrabble tiles may change due to the number of players playing the game, the type of grid board used, or the winning objectives.
All the scrabble-related games aim to improve linguistic skills, vocabulary and create a fun time with their friends.
Games with Scrabble tiles can be very useful for growing kids learning to read and improve cognitive thinking in terms of creativity and innovativeness. A kid can do that by forming short phrases and saying them out loud to improve linguistic skills as well.