Lexophiles love the game of "Scrabble." You get to use your enormous vocabulary to impress those who unwittingly play against you. The uninitiated often think that the only game you can play with "Scrabble" pieces is "Scrabble." True word lovers have great imaginations, though, and have come up with several variations, including Bananagrams.

  • Lexophiles love the game of "Scrabble."
  • The uninitiated often think that the only game you can play with "Scrabble" pieces is "Scrabble."

Lay out the tiles face down in the middle of the table and mix them up well.

Take a certain number of pieces according to how many players join the game. Two to four players take 21, five to six players take 15 and any more than that take 8 tiles.

Begin building individual puzzles, each player with his or her own. Players work independently rather than taking turns, and no two puzzles will be the same. Normal "Scrabble" rules apply as far as proper nouns, places,people, and letter usage. Words may be spelt left to right or top to bottom. Blank tiles may be substituted for any letter, and if you are totalling the points, they are worth none.

  • Begin building individual puzzles, each player with his or her own.
  • Blank tiles may be substituted for any letter, and if you are totalling the points, they are worth none.

Take an extra tile every time one player uses all of his or her tiles in their puzzle. Continue in this manner until all the tiles in the centre of the table are exhausted, or there are not enough tiles for each player to take one.

TIP

Make the game interesting by totalling the points up fro each puzzle. Tiles in the puzzle add to the score, tiles left over are subtracted. Play to a certain point total. You may want to use more than one set of tiles, since there are 100 tiles in a Scrabble box and 144 in a Bananagrams pouch.

WARNING

This game is not recommended for very small children, as the tiles pose a choking hazard.