The Lonesome Road

I take (a small amount of) pride in my vocabulary. To be honest, I don’t have no idea how many words I know - but the number I know usually serve me well.

Till I play Boggle.

I suck at Boggle.

What’s Boggle? Oh - I assumed that it’s common knowledge. Boggle (the physical version) consists of a 4×4 grid. Each grid has a cube with a letter from the alphabet - one on each side placed in it. The base is then covered with a clear plastic cover - it’s like a cuboid dome - and shaken. Vigorously. Once you survive the noise assault of the shaken plastic, the dome is lifted and a 3 minute timer is started. You now have all of 3 minutes to find words.

Words can be found by connecting adjecent letters horizontally, vertically or diagonally. The only prohibition is a letter may not be reused. Minimum word length is usually 4. Scoring is simple. You and your opponent(s) compare lists at the end of 3 minutes. Every common word is crossed out. Then for every unique word points are awarded. 4 letter words = 1 point. 5 letter words = 2 points and so on. Decide a limit to be reached - and that it.

Sounds simple? The rules are. The game isn’t.

First of all you have the timer ticking away. But once you get into the groove, the timer is usually ignored. The second problem is running through combinations. You have 16 blocks on the board and each brick has 3 possible outgoing paths. I’m not saying it’s as complicated as chess - but you have to be fast to see, use and discard combinations. The best Boggle players will make words and quickly look to see if they can make multiples and use them in various tenses. For eg. Test - Tests - Tested and then similar words such as Tester.

And you better know a lot of words.

Why all this interest in Boggle? For one, I think my vocabulary is good (see article start) - but my cousin wins big time at Boggle. The rumor in the family is that she cheats - but I don’t agree with that theory. It’s all about vocabulary and pattern matching. So, today I found a Boggle game on GameHouse and downloaded it. There’s a solitary mode in it. I thought - why not. That’s where I got a bit of a beating. I’m getting 36% of the possible words on each board. Ouch. Even if you factor in the fact that this board allows 3 letter words (which I hate looking for. Consider the minimum should be four) - it’s still pretty low.

So here I sit. A little humbled - but definitely not defeated. I’m going to hit the game again and show it who’s the boss.

Until next time : Keep your mind sharp - play a word game!