Despite their scepticism, I was determined to give it a shot. I chose to pit my experience of Scrabble against it’s online cousin Literati. Here’s what ensued…
Scrabble with friends…
It had been aeons since I had even thought about playing a word game. Although my friends and I still get together, Scrabble was a thing of days bygone. A dedicated search in the attic for the board proved unfruitful, and I decided I had to buy a new board.
A visit to the book/toy store was next. I couldn’t remember my last trip there, nor seeing so many different brands! Eventually, I found and picked up a Scrabble for Rs 300.
The following weekend, I proposed a cosy afternoon at the Scrabble table. My proposal was met with silence (“Reading is more the vogue,” they said), but my buddies gradually warmed to the idea. Soon we were marking scores and arguing over the existence of words such as “piccolo.”
After an hour at the game, we decided to wind up. We had enjoyed our gaffes and word construction attempts, but had also, frankly, gotten bored of the board-pardon the ridiculous rhyme! Maybe we’d outgrown what we’d enjoyed so much as kids. We decided to put our evening to something more exciting than pondering trays of letters. A trip to the CD library followed.
Fun Quotient: 2.5/5
Total Time Taken: 2 hours
Literati with strangers…
I logged in to the Literati section of Yahoo! games (games.yahoo.com), and there was much more here than I’d expected. You can sign up to play in the League and Ladder rooms-you have to pay for these-or you can choose to play in one of the Global Game rooms in categories such as Social, Beginner, Advanced and so on, which are free. I dared not take on too many challenges on my first foray, and chose to be “Social.”
Well, there is more! A click on the Social game room showed a further thirty or so rooms. Once I was in one of them, I set up my own board, set a time limit for word construction, and soon ‘Wicked_24’ and ‘abjoy_d’ joined in for the game. There began the first round!
I didn’t need to keep a tab on the score or monitor time-the computer kept track for me-a lapse in time results in a player forfeiting the game. I could exchange friendly banter with the others even as I played. I finally won the game-both the others lost out on time. Victory in just 25 minutes beats a boring hour of Scrabble!
Two discoveries supplemented my win. I could play more than one board at a time, and better still, I received a ranking for every win or loss. This I liked! Being rated actually makes you want to play more-and, hopefully, win more. And hey, I was online and could even surf while playing! No cheat sites for me, though!
Fun Quotient: 4/5
Total Time Taken: 40 minutes
And The Winner Is…
All right, I’m hooked! Lets relegate the ol’ board game to get-togethers. If you need more than just a pastime for lazy summer afternoons, put down a resolution right now to register online. Playing on the Net demands all the skills a board game does and more-you’ve got to be sharp and on your feet! Literati is better designed than Scrabble to boot. You can’t argue if you lose a game. There’s no going back on your move. And unlike playing it the old way, success online makes you hungry for more, courtesy the rating system!