Mike's Boggle Challenge
Think you're good at Boggle? I've never met anyone in person
who can consistently beat me at Boggle. If you think you're up to the
challenge, then please contact me so we can play - but I warn you that
unless you are literally destroying normal people on a regular basis,
then you will have no chance. When I play (which is rare) against people who
are not members of my family, I usually play against everyone else in
the game and win comfortably. Also, you can go to this site,
and test your skills - I almost always finish in the top 20% on the 5x5 board.
I'm not saying this to be arrogant or boastful, but rather to save you time.
Good Boggle Rule Changes
Since my family plays (used to play, really) a lot, my parents came up
with a few good rules changes to make the game more enjoyable. I
recommend them highly if you are playing regularly at all:
1) 4x4 games are played with a 4-letter word minimum, and 5x5 games
are played with a 5-letter word minimum. If you get good enough, you
end up scribbling frantically the whole time without this rule.
2) Scoring - the scoring system is kind of silly. Conceivably, two
players could find the same 4 obscure 8-letter words and a third
could find one short word and win, when clearly he did not do as
well. Instead, try the following system: each word has a base value
one greater than the previous length (e.g. 4-letter = 1, 5-letter =
2, 6-letter = 3...etc). When you read a word, you get that base
value multiplied by the number of people who missed that particular
word. This works well in 4-5 player games, but the numbers get kind
of big in 6+ person games. Let's say I read the word "scarf" and one
person got it with me and two missed it. Both people who got it would
receive 4 points, and the people who missed it would get 0.
Obviously, if everyone gets a word you cross it off.
3) This one I don't feel too strongly about - we disallow adding 's', 'es'
or 'ies' to the end of words. This will also sometimes prevent frantic
scribbling, since 's' is a very common letter and nearly every
noun and verb have a plural form. I still find the game to be
enjoyable without this rule, although you do sometimes lose the
ability to look for longer words amidst scribbling down 5-letter words
ending in 's'.
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