boggle

It’s taken me a number of days to get around to this but I was busy doing Gilman’s puzz…no, I mean I was busy pursuing my new found friendship with Annette……no, not that either.  Okay, I’ve just been lazy and uninspired, but I think I’ve settled on something I like enough.

If you have ever played Boggle before, you should be familiar with the basic rules. If your name is anything other than Melissa, you will want to continue on to get ALL the details.

BASICS

During each Boggle round, players try to find as many words as possible of three or more letters each. The words must only use a single letter on the Boggle board once (unless it appears twice – having more than one die with an “s” on it, for example), and all letters in the word must be connected on the Boggle board horizontally, vertically, or diagonally.

Plural words (“game” versus “games”) and words of different tenses (“play” versus “played”) are all valid Boggle words individually.

  • Each round will consist of three separate Boggle boards.
  • You will have 3 minutes to find words for each board.
  • If another player or players have the same Boggle word, the word will not count. Only unique words receive points in Boggle.
  • Valid words will be determined based on an American/Canadian Scrabble dictionary.
  • If it is decided that the word is not a valid Boggle word, the player will lose points equal to what they would have gained from the word.
    ***However, I will give you 5 freebies for misspelling/typos or thinking you knew a word. After that, instead of those words simply not being counted, you will receive the penalty points.***
  • You will have 7 powers at your disposal for each round. They can be used all on one board or you can spread out their use over the course of playing the three boards.
  • You will be linked to spreadsheets containing the boards. You will need to make you own copy of the spreadsheet and link it to me with editing rights when your time is up.
  • There will be specific columns to enter answers in. More about that later.

GOALS & SCORING

You will be ranked based on three separate goals for each board. Every board will have the goal of high score based on standard Boggle scoring.

Word Values:
3-letters: 1 point
4-letters: 2 points
5-letters: 3 points
6-letters: 4 points
7-letters: 5 points
etc., etc.

Every board will also have two other random goals that you are ranked on, from the list below.

Finding the most:

  • 3-letter words
  • 4-letter words
  • 5-letter words
  • Starts with: Words starting with the highlighted letter
  • Ends with: Words ending with the highlighted letter
  • Corners: Words using a corner letter. Extra point for each corner letter used in the same word.
  • Diagonals: Words that only follow diagonal paths
  • Horizontal/Vertical: Words that only follow a horizontal, vertical or combination of horz/vert path.
  • Longest word: Find the longest word of any submitted
  • One vowel: Words containing only one vowel
  • Blackout: Try to find a group of words that uses all the tiles on the board or as many of the tiles as you can. Letters can be used again in other words of the group. Tie-breaking will be based on the number of letters used to form a blackout.

Any word you want to qualify for the two random goals will need to be entered into the designated column. This is for a few reasons:
1) My sanity. Saves time on scoring
2) Rewarding players who actively/knowingly find words that apply to a special goal
3) To make attaining a high ranking in all three goals more difficult by making you focus on them.

Your words do NOT have to be unique from your opponents for the two random goals. Words that meet these goals also count towards the standard scoring goal. You should not list a word twice.

After tallying your scores and word counts for each goal you will be ranked and receive the following points for your ranking in each goal

1st: 5 points
2nd: 4 points
3rd: 3 points
4th: 2 points
5th: 1 point
6th: 0 points

So if the goals were Standard Scoring, Corner Words and One Vowel Words and you scored the highest in standard scoring, found the third most corner words, and the fourth most One Vowel Words you would received 5+3+2 for 10 points on that board.

Ties for goals will be broken based on the number of powers used by you and/or against you. If still tied, points will be shared between places.

Special Answer: Of course there will be a special answer on each board. I will provide a clue for a word that can be found on each board. If you find it and type it in the designated column, you will receive two points. It will not be cancelled out, while opponents who list it, but not it the special answer column will not have it counted. If you are the ONLY person to find it among ALL players, you will receive four points.

There will be 3 boards to play in the first round. I will add your scores from all three boards to determine the final standings and see who advances. The top two from each group will advance, plus the next two highest scorers from any group. Ties will be broken by number of powers used by you/against you, then after that, the highest standard scoring ranking.

The top 8 will go into a winners bracket, while the bottom 8 get to play in the losers bracket. The top four of each bracket will go to their respective finals. If possible it will be live again with the viewers being able to flip back and forth crazily between 4 spreadsheets to watch the contestants race against the clock.

TOOLS

You have seven powers available to you to use each round. They can be played all on one board or spread out. Ties will be broken by the number of powers used (less is better) so keep that in mind.

Time Extension (1) — Can be played during any board. Will give you an additional 30 seconds to find more words.

Protection (3) — Play this on one of your words to keep it form being cancelled out by your opponents who have found the same word. Protected words in the random goals will cancel out your opponents word.

Tile-turner / Anti-Tile-Turner (3) — Changes the orientation of two letters on an opponents board or protects against two of your tiles orientation changing. Multiple opponents could play this on you resulting in anywhere from 2 to all 16 of your tiles being rotated. Do you have trouble reading sideways and upside down? Protect yourself 🙂

I think that’s about it, but I may be forgetting something. I will include reminders and more specifics for the goals with your boards.

What I need you all to do before I send you your boards is send me an email if you would like to use your Tile-turner/Anti-Tile-Turner power. You must tell me which board(s) [#1, #2, #3], whether it’s to protect yourself or use against a particular opponent. You could use 3 against one opponent on the same board, one on all three boards of the same opponent, protect yourself once on one while attacking an opponent twice on another, etc. etc. Many possibilities. Your emails should have the goals for each board if that makes a difference in your decision.

Post any questions/concerns you have.