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matthewb03 remembers...i love boggle man that is with 3 letter word to solve in like 60 seconds. you got to find a ... More »
Posted on 09/15/08
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Perhaps it is an unwritten code. Perhaps it is a rule long lost to the annals of human history. Perhaps it’s gospel knowledge lost through centuries of translations. Perhaps it is scientific fact waiting to be disputed by the foolishly bold. Whatever the case may be, the case arguably is that adding a timer to any fun activity ups the fun even more. For example, take Scrabble, remove hours to staring slack-jawed at your opponent while he tries to make a word out of four E’s, a J, and two O’s by adding a three minute time limit. Better yet, give each player the same letters and let them create words that twist and wind around each other. Behold! You have created Boggle.
Actually, Allan Turoff invented Boggle for Parker Brothers over a quarter of a century ago. The “original three-minute word search game” features sixteen six-sided dice peppered with different letters. These sit inside an enclosed tray where, after a generous shaking, they sit face up on a four by four grid. For the next three minutes, players scramble to scribble all of the possible word combinations they see. Words must be at least three letters in length and can be found by moving horizontally, vertically, or diagonally at any point in the word. Each letter in the tray can be used only once, but plurals and derivatives are fair game. Three minutes later, pencils drop and scoring ensues. A predetermined dictionary settles most disputes, and words common to any player are thrown out entirely.
Players quickly learn the crucial indicators and unerring strategy of Boggle. Many advocate the virtues of “reverse spelling.” At first glance, one searches for suffixes ed, er, ing, able, less, ition, and so on. A one point “cool” therefore becomes an eleven point “coolness.” For those not gifted in the art of “swell spell,” there are always anagrams. Perfect for nickel and diming your way up the scoreboard, anagramaniacs know that a word as simple as “point” could possibly yield up eight points with “pin,” “pit,” “nip,” “tip,” “top,” “pot,” and “pinto.” Of course, the ultimate, unbeatable Boggle coup comes with spelling “Inconsequentially,” “Quadricentennials,” or “Sesquicentennials,” the only possible letter combinations that use every space on the grid.
With advantages going to top spellers, Parker Brothers released numerous variations of Boggle to try and accommodate all comers. Big Boggle (later known as Boggle Master and Boggle Deluxe) added nine letters to the grid by upping it to five by five and prohibited the three letter words. Boggle Junior went in the other direction, simplifying things up for the little tykes. Travel Boggle (or Boggle Folio) is a compact version for the car. Parker Brothers also borrowed concepts from other games to liven up the already lively Boggle. Less popular than the original but noteworthy all the same are Body Boggle (Twister with letters instead of colors), Boggle Bowl (something of a microwave version of Scrabble), and Math Boggle (no real explanation needed for that one).
While spelling perhaps isn’t the coolest game in the world, anyone who ever played Boggle can argue the inverse. Spelling, especially in under three minutes, is a game to be reckoned with.
