While the whole world partied, few watched series of reruns on television, what did I do on the Saturday night? Umm! I played and solved this most talked about word game to engage in a little fun without having to leave my computer.
Apparently, I am an addict to this wondrous online game Scrabulous and had five games going as of Saturday. Never a fan of the original board game however, I get an adrenaline rush with Scrabulous, created by India's Rajat Aggarwalla and his brother Jayant Aggarwalla, which everyone seems to love. Everyone, that is, except the companies that own the rights to Scrabble - Hasbro and Mattel. For those who are as yet amateur into the wild world of Facebook, Scrabulous is an online version of – you guessed it – Scrabble. Complete with tiles, bingos, triples or double letters or wordplays, high value tiles, strategic placements, sarcastic taunts between competitors and obscure playable words like ka, ki, xi, xu, za, gi, ga!
The latest bane of office productivity, Scrabulous, a virtual knockoff of the board game, with over 700,000 players a day and nearly three million registered users, targets a young audience. This online game has already brought Scrabble a new found virtual popularity that even Hasbro & Mattel could have never anticipated.
Played on the social-networking site Facebook, Scrabulous has a board that looks just like Scrabble, and has the same number of letter tiles with the same point values. It is a very easy word game. All you need to do is login, pick a room or you can send invitations to others on Facebook or search for strangers to play with by posting messages. You can also play against your friends, co-workers, family members and strangers, and can have several games going at once. When the game starts, use the tiles in your rack to make words and score points! There is no time limit for moves or games. The game keeps track of your statistics, and it does not allow fake words. It cannot, however, prevent you from cheating. One method is an unaffiliated online "helper" program, which generates a list of possible words based on the letters a user has.
While waiting for your next turn, the game gives immediate and graphic feedback for each move made and the game remains continuous. Its multiplayer mode is fun and the internal messaging system is a great addiction, used widely to tease, smack or console your opponent. Explore this challenging game after work. You might meet me there…!
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