Scrabnite? Fortble?
December 16, 2021 9:35 AM   Subscribe

Like Scrabble? Yes? Sick of battle royale games yet? No? Try Babble Royale!

From the makers of Universal Paperclips (previously) comes a new take on word games... to the death!

The rules:
1) 16 players drop "deep in the Siberian wilderness."
2) Standard Scrabble layout rules apply, except your next word must be built off your last played word.
3) If you build a word that crosses with an opponent's active word, that player is out.
4) Standard Battle Royale rules apply - choose a spot to "drop" and don't get stuck in the "hot zone."
5) Last word standing wins.
posted by backseatpilot (25 comments total) 7 users marked this as a favorite
 
It's an interesting idea, but judging by the screenshots, just about any random set of two or three letters is counted as a word, which would take most of the fun out of it.
posted by one for the books at 10:08 AM on December 16, 2021


but judging by the screenshots, just about any random set of two or three letters is counted as a word

A non-scrabble-player appears!
posted by a box and a stick and a string and a bear at 10:18 AM on December 16, 2021 [37 favorites]


One for the books, if you don't allow two and three letter words it becomes almost impossible to play two parallel & adjacent words. One of the joys of scrabble is playing words in a tight spot when the board is crowded. It does mean the neophytes who haven't memorized every word under five letters in the dictionary are at a disadvantage (I haven't either).
posted by BrotherCaine at 10:45 AM on December 16, 2021 [2 favorites]


My normal Scrabble rack ends up looking like "PUBG" anyway.

This was fun, but as I moved toward the center, the "camera" didn't move, so I couldn't keep going. Finished 4th anyway, so I'm hooked.
posted by Rock Steady at 10:54 AM on December 16, 2021 [1 favorite]


just about any random set of two or three letters is counted as a word

If they're playing with the standard tournament Scrabble set of words, there isn't a single two letter word with a C or a V in it.

But, on the other hand, AA AB AD AE AG AH AI AL AM AN AR AS AT AW AX AY
posted by box at 11:07 AM on December 16, 2021 [2 favorites]


> This was fun, but as I moved toward the center, the "camera" didn't move, so I couldn't keep going. Finished 4th anyway, so I'm hooked.

I had the same thing happen, then discovered you can move the map by right-clicking the board and dragging.

The other tip I found is that you can click on the board and then type, rather than dragging, which I found to be slow and imprecise.

Fun strategy near the end of the game is to type out a killer word that is blocked by grey tiles, then immediately bomb + place the word. Gives you lots of defense!
posted by Maecenas at 11:10 AM on December 16, 2021 [3 favorites]


I had the same thing happen, then discovered you can move the map by right-clicking the board and dragging.

Ah, OK. There is also a "follow camera" option that seemed to work.

Managed as high as third, but the player that got me won with AAS, so you know they are a top-tier Scrabbler.
posted by Rock Steady at 11:15 AM on December 16, 2021


I've spent more time than I'd like to admit hiding in a dumpster during a Battle Royal game. (I got a shit weapon - poisoned quail eggs - and had no allies, so waiting until everyone else died was the only option. It didn't work.) But, I didn't know it was a genre of games that other people played. Interesting. How does Siberia come into it?
posted by eotvos at 11:39 AM on December 16, 2021


this whole thread is someone's emerging fiction piece

let me know when you're done, I'll buy it
posted by elkevelvet at 11:46 AM on December 16, 2021 [1 favorite]


But, I didn't know it was a genre of games that other people played. Interesting. How does Siberia come into it?

There are many popular Battle Royale games. Probably the most popular game in the world at the moment is Fortnite. The Siberia thing probably comes from the fact that one of the early standouts in the genre, PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds (or PUBG) had a map that was a fictional Russian island.
posted by Rock Steady at 12:36 PM on December 16, 2021 [2 favorites]


How does Siberia come into it? I assumed "Siberia" was just a poetic way of saying dumped all the way out on the edge away from the center to start, but now I'm curious.
posted by BrotherCaine at 1:21 PM on December 16, 2021


Ugh. I understand that the scrabble letter scores are based on the frequency of occurrence of that lettter in English generally, but it galls me every single time that you can make a two-letter word with the 8-point X and literally any vowel, but the 3-point C is unusable in tighter positions. Hopefully the new patch will nerf X.
posted by Pickman's Next Top Model at 3:01 PM on December 16, 2021 [3 favorites]


+1 for "words with enemies" joke
posted by chavenet at 3:19 PM on December 16, 2021


triple on woodwinds that end with O or G.
posted by clavdivs at 3:33 PM on December 16, 2021


B
A
S
S
O
O B O
N
G
posted by moonmilk at 5:25 PM on December 16, 2021 [2 favorites]


the 8-point X and literally any vowel

My ex paid six xu for her nth ox and a xi ax. Tsk.
posted by box at 6:04 PM on December 16, 2021 [1 favorite]


Okay this was fun, but now my wrist hurts and I should probably never play this again. Won 7 times in my first 20 games, apparently battle royal + scrabble is the perfect combination for me. Random tips I figured out:

The keyboard-only input method (hit escape for options) is probably the way to go. The movement is kind of weird but typing is way faster. The other method that worked was clicking once or twice (it changes direction on second click) and then typing, with backspace to cancel what you've typed so far.

If you use your last letter up it immediately refills your tray, which is really good to combine with the overload ability you can use when your tray is full. So if you have a bunch of awful letters, you can overload to nuke your tray and grey blocks around, hopefully place the first letter you get immediately, and then get a full new tray. And then you can do the exact same thing again if you need to
posted by JZig at 8:00 PM on December 16, 2021


I suck at this but I love it.
posted by freethefeet at 2:35 AM on December 17, 2021


If you use your last letter up it immediately refills your tray

Oh! I had that happen once or twice, but I never put it together that it was a mechanic. That is good to know.

If you are doing keyboard-only, SHIFT changes the direction of your typing from horizontal to vertical, which was very helpful to figure out.
posted by Rock Steady at 6:20 AM on December 17, 2021


If you use your last letter up it immediately refills your tray, which is really good to combine with the overload ability you can use when your tray is full.

Also, don't sleep on the fact that there is a "store" where you can buy things like bombs (to replicate the overload ability) and recycles (to change your letters) with the cash the accumulates during the game. None of this is explained - you just have to find it - but once you do it's much easier to win or at least finish in the top 2 or 3.
posted by The Bellman at 7:20 AM on December 17, 2021


I'll be in my bunk.
posted by jessamyn at 1:49 PM on December 17, 2021 [6 favorites]


Well howdy I don't think I've ever played a Steam game before. So this is both fun and super confusing and I have some questions to anyone in this thread who is patient.

1. How do I control where it drops me?
2. Is there a way to fast-forward through some of the more boring screens on the way to and from this game?
3. What dictionary is it using?

it galls me every single time that you can make a two-letter word with the 8-point X and literally any vowel, but the 3-point C is unusable in tighter positions. Hopefully the new patch will nerf X.

AX OX EX XI XU are all the X words and CH is the *only* two letter C word (if it counts here) and there are ZERO two-letter words with the letter V. Pro tip: you can spell the names of all the letters.
posted by jessamyn at 2:30 PM on December 17, 2021


How do I control where it drops me?

WASD will move you around during the drop.

My biggest complaint so far is that the documentation is completely nonexistent. I think most of my questions are related to the freemium format, but - what are the golden tickets for? What’s the skull and crossbones space in the corner of the board? What do player levels do? So many questions.
posted by backseatpilot at 6:58 PM on December 17, 2021


WASD will move you around during the drop.

Ah very helpful, the arrow keys I guess also do this. Next question, what is that "overload" little exploder thing for? Like I use it sometimes when I've lettered my way into a corner and it blows up all my words except the current one, but I'm not sure what the cost/benefit of this activity is. I've never managed to get higher than 7th in the past day of on and off playing but it's been fun trying.
posted by jessamyn at 11:11 AM on December 18, 2021


When you are spelled into a box you need the overload to break free. Otherwise the decreasing border on the map will get you. The downside is that using overload clears your letter rack and leaves your word open for a crossing word from an opponent.
posted by meinvt at 2:21 PM on December 18, 2021 [1 favorite]


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