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Scrabble Review.
WE have all been there, At least those of us playing Scrabble with elderly relatives trying to decide weather putting something rood on the board will be worth the scolding
Introduction
It finally happened! The thing to surpass Bingo. in a moment that I honestly don’t think any one can appreciate, RS games finally released Scrabble.
Now I say finally as I have been waiting for this moment, and that is both true and false.
I have always hoped an accessible version of Scrabble would be released online and I have been very shocked it has taken this long. But I also didn’t think it would ever happen.
So of course to bring in a new year I had to review it.
1 Note before we get in to this. This is not a substitute for the rules. While I will give a brief explanation for how the game is played. Don’t treat this as your guide to playing Scrabble on RS Games.
Note 2: I actually had to rewrite several parts of this article as things have been up dated since I first started writing. I bring this up because as time goes on this article might be wrong for things I say here.
Information
Game: Scrabble, [On RS Games].
Developer: RS Games.
Platform: Windows, Mac, IOS.
Released: December 2020.
type: Board game.
Download and Install
Now normally I wouldn’t include this section for a new game on RS as you can usually just load up the client and download the new sounds. How ever Scrabble does need a new client, so you do have to up date your client if you wish to play.
This is pretty straight forward as it just involves visiting the RS Games website and installing the new client.
I originally wrote here that people were having several issues downloading the new client but these seem to have been resolved.
So once you have the game which seems reasonably easy to do lets talk about playing.
Game Play
Scrabble is a classic family game that can be played with 2 to 4 players.
It is played on a grid 15 by 15.
Each player receives 7 tiles with letters on them. At your turn you attempt to make words using the letters that are already on the board.
Each letter is worth a certain amount of points from 1 to 10 and the score is calculated based on the words you make.
Certain squares on the board can also help you get extra points. These include double and triple letter, as well as double and triple word.
Keyboard Shortcuts
Usually this heading is commands but I think shortcuts makes more sense here.
To be honest this is usually where I pull up RS games for putting in weird or just badly thought out commands.
But I can’t fault them here. The short cuts work really well and are simple to get the hang of.
The letters A and D to cycle through your letters, and you can also use the number row 1 to 7. after your letters the options are, end turn, recall letters (if your turn is invalid), or pass turn.
XXtthe arrow keys move you around the board and C takes you back to the center of the board.
Enter to play a letter on the board or take it back if you put the wrong thing in.
I am pretty sure that is all the important commands and they seem to work well enough.
How does it hold up
So lets talk about the game now and how it goes playing. The truth is I learned how to play on a real board. I still own a braille board and play often with my family. Learning online does seem to come with a few challenges, and it brings me to the main two issues I have with the game.
The first is that there is no easy way to see where you are on the board. From what I understand they are working on this but it would be nice if there was a key that told you where you were. Even if it said something like you are 3 down and 4 to the right of the start square. This would also be a way for it to announce where people have played words.
The other issue I have is that when it is your turn it throws you back to the start square. This doesn’t seem to serve much purpose and can be annoying if you have found a spot while waiting for others and you then have to go find it again.
Anything else I would bring up would be miner gripes.
The game does work really well and as a big fan of scrabble I am especially happy to see an accessible version online.
I wish I could go in to why I like the game more but I think it is best said like this.
Scrabble is a very simple game once you have the hang of it. Sure playing it and getting good can be tricky but over all it is simple. RS have stuck to this and kept it simple and easy to understand.
They have put together a fantastic version of a classic game and I look forward to many hours of playing it.
Miner Gripes
Yes I said I had some miner gripes and I am going to air them.
You don’t get a 50 point bonus when you play a word that uses all 7 of your letters. This is a rule in the official version of scrabble so get your shit together RS!
It would be nice if you could sort your letters. Honestly this is something I just got used to being able to do in real life. But it would be nice if you could do it on the online version.
Rating
My first reaction was going to be just to smash a high rating. But the truth is this review is on the RS version and while I really enjoy it there are a small number of things that could be improved.
But give me the ability to see where I am on the board and my 50 point bonus RS and you can have a 10 out of 10.
8 out of 10.
Conclusion
Have you played RS Scrabble? what did you think? let me know in the comments below.
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