Expert: Sherry Wallin - 10/21/2011

Question
Dear Prof Sherry

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrabble

Current Board Design

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15*15 square board


225 squares = 60 squares comprising of triple word, triple letter, double word and double letter

105 tiles i.e. A to Z Alphabets including blank tiles

triple word Tiles = 8 squares = red color

triple letter Tiles = 12 squares = dark blue

double word Tiles = 16 square = pink color

double letter Tiles = 24 square = light blue


Re engineered Board Design

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17*17 square board


289 squares = 84 squares comprising of magic, quadruple word, quadruple letter, triple word, triple letter, double word and double letter

Create 125 tiles instead of 105 tiles i.e. A to Z Alphabets including blank tiles


Magic Tiles = 4 Yellow color

quadruple word Tiles = 4 dark gray

quadruple letter Tiles = 8 light gray

triple word Tiles = 10 squares = red color

triple letter Tiles = 14 squares = dark blue

double word Tiles = 18 square = pink color

double letter Tiles = 26 square = light blue


Note : Magic Tiles allow the player to continue adding a new word when one of the alphabets falls on the Magic Tile instead of giving
a chance to his / her opponent to form a Word.i.e The Player who forms a word has one of his alphabets on the Magic Tile gets a extra
continuation of word formation.

The Positions of the magic, quadruple word, quadruple letter, triple word, triple letter, double word and double letter have to be
redesigned on the Scrabble Board.

Summary :

1. Increase the Area of the Board from 225 squares to 289 squares.
2. Add New Quadruple Word, Quadruple Letter & Magic Tiles with Color Codes.
3. Increase Number of Manufactured Tiles i.e A to Z along with Blank Tiles.
4. Position the Marked Tiles viz Magic, quadruple word, quadruple letter, triple word, triple letter, double word and double letter properly with Mirrored Alignment of the Board
5. The Game becomes a Longer version.

Scrabble is a excellent Word Power Indoor Game Design.

We can try designing Scrabble for Indian Regional Languages viz Hindi, Marathi, Bengali, Gujarati, Tamil, Malayalam etc. Every Regional Language has different number of letters, vowels and consonants to form words, similar to English language (26 letters/characters/alphabets, 5 vowels, 21 consonants).

Can we also design the current Scrabble Board Game to a Game Software application similar to Chess being played on the internet (with online opponents and computer) and as a desktop application (with computer) ?.

Thanks & Regards,
Prashant S Akerkar

Answer
Hi, what an interesting thing to ponder. I am sure the answer is yes to your last question, that is, scrabble could be designed to be played on a computer. I am not so sure about the new board size vs the additional types of play. Will there be enough extra squares? Have you made a prototype with the squares laid out? If you look at the ratios of 60/225 and then x/289 you get about 77 and you have 84. By the way I am curious how/why you chose 17^2? Is it because the difference of 17^2-15^2 is a square number namely 8^2??

Math Prof