- Upwords
Infobox_Game
subject_name=UpWords
image_link=
image_caption=A finished "Upwords" game
designer=Elliot Rudell
publisher=Hasbro Games
players=2 to 4
ages=10 years and up
setup_time=< 1 min
playing_time= 45 to 90 minutes
complexity=Easy
strategy=Medium
random_chance=Medium
skills=Counting,Strategy ,Vocabulary
footnotes ="Upwords" is a
board game invented byElliot Rudell and published byHasbro . The game is similar to "Scrabble ", except that letters can be stacked on top of other words to create new words. The higher the stack of letters, the more points are scored. This often makes words built in later turns of the game more valuable than earlier words, increasing play intensity.The game is available in about twenty languages. Hasbro has recently licensed electronic marketing rights to
Microsoft , making it available electronically for the first time sinceAOL boughtGames.com and withdrew the game.There have been national tournaments played in
Hungary andTurkey .Game play
Players draw letter tiles until they have seven tiles on their racks. The first player forms a word that covers one or more of the central squares. After forming a word, the player draws more tiles to replenish their rack. Play continues to the left.
Subsequent plays may put tiles on the board and on top of tiles already played, so long as all words formed are found in the dictionary being used. For example, if a word on the board is CATER, a player on a subsequent turn could put a B and E in front of CATER and then put an L on top of the C and a D on top of the R to build BELATED.
Players score one point for every tile in their word, and for each tile "under" their word. If the word is entirely on the first board layer, they instead score two points per letter.
Since "Upwords" lacks bonus squares like "Scrabble", players are not allowed to pluralise existing words, to prevent people from capitalizing too much on other players' words.
Originally, "Upwords" was played on an 8×8 square board, which many players felt to be cramped relative to "Scrabble"'s 15×15 grid.Fact|date=March 2008 Newer "Upwords" sets come with a 10×10 square board, which allows for much more comfortable play.
Unlike "Scrabble", which is controlled by competitors
Hasbro (in the U.S.) andMattel (in Europe), "Upwords" is at this time solely under the worldwide licensing control of Hasbro, making it the only such worldwide word game property that can be Internet-marketed and Internet-offered with complete licensing control.Fact|date=March 2008External links
*bgg|1515|"Upwords"
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