Board Strategy in Wordscape Online Party

Since some of my fellow Wordscape players have been asking me questions about board strategy, I decided to go ahead and dedicate a blog to the subject.

There are several components to success in the game of Wordscape. It definitely helps to have a good vocabulary, to be a good speller and to be able to see the words that are available to you. You also need a strategy concerning how you make words. I can’t (or won’t) help you much with those, so I will stick with board strategy. It should be interesting to see how many second tier (1600-1800 rated) players will be able to advance to the first tier using my methods. I should emphasize here that this is only my method. There are other strategies that are just as valid if they produce comparable results.

Let us divide the game into 4 parts here. The game lasts for 20 rounds and we will examine what your objective should be in each section of the game.

Rounds 1-5

There are two main objectives in the early going. You need to make long words and start clearing the outside rows. (They are technically columns but rows is acceptable and is what I prefer to call them.) Try NOT to allow the board to move up completely at this point. In other words, always leave something at the top. The two outside rows on each side have triple word score tiles available. These obviously make for big word scores. You need to move toward the bottom of the two outside rows as quickly as possible. Making longs words is the best way to accomplish this. It allows you to get to the bonus tiles quickly. You should also try to clear as many letters as possible from the other rows while ideally leaving one row undisturbed. Do not worry about scores in the first five rounds. The only exception is if there is what I would call a monster word available. As the game progresses word scores should increase so at this stage I would say a monster word would be one worth 200+ points.

Rounds 6-10

Now it is time to shape or tweak your board. When you arrive at round 10, ideally you would have only one or two rows left that go all the way to the top. Most of the rest of the rows should be at the middle or lower. A few of them should be near the bottom. You should start to gain access to the bonus tiles and increase your score. As you advance from round 6 to round 10, shift your emphasis from word size to word score.

Rounds 11-15

At this point of the game, you should either already be making big scoring words and moving your board up a row or two each turn or you should be figuring out a way to achieve that objective very quickly. If your board is starting to look worse rather than better, you may want to consider flipping around this stage of the game. While you should always be aware of any monster words lurking on the flip side, by now you should be able to determine how the flip side looks compared to what you have now. If you are very short on consonants or vowels or have an extreme surplus of any starting letters, it may be time to flip. If you have a lot of low scoring letters and the flip side has X’s, J’s, Q’s, etc., it may be time to flip. There are two pitfalls to avoid in flipping. Sometimes there is a great word on the flip side but nothing else. Have a good look and see what you will be left with after the initial word. Sometimes, the flip side looks too good to be true. It may have lots of high scoring letters but nothing to play them with. An example would be a Q without U’s or I’s or an X without E’s or A’s. I prefer not to flip before the second half of the game unless the starting side is terrible and the flip side looks very enticing. Just remember, if you do flip early, you are stuck with the flip side at least until round 11 when additional flips become available.

Rounds 16-20

Now it is time to rack up those points. Each turn, if your board is properly tweaked, you should have 2 or 3 triple word or letter score tiles available and a few doubles as well. If you play your tiles right, you can use several doubles and triples in the same turn while using the one or two letters you have left at the top. This moves the board by one or two rows and gives you the same setup all over again. You should be scoring 150-400 points per word at this point. Once you get good at this strategy, you should also try to leave as little good stuff on the board as possible for the last challenge round if you are in the lead.

Adjustment Rounds

Sometimes you have to bite the bullet. If your board is totally hosed and the flip side isn’t any better, it may be necessary to move the entire board. Try not to do this more than once per game and again, only as a last resort. As the game progresses, you may have to mess up your own board configuration in order to score a monster word. If that is the case, you want to restore your scoring combination by adjusting your board. I am sure you have seen top tier players do it before, whether you have recognized it for what it is or not. Just watch a consistently high scoring player. Sometimes you will see this pattern: 165, 280, 402, 7, 225. That 7 score was no fluke. Chances are it was a board adjustment that obviously worked.

So, that is pretty much my board strategy. I have a word strategy as well but I may or not publish it as I am not sure I want everyone beating me with my own strategies. To sum it up, for those of you want to make a cheat sheet:

1-5 long words – clear outside rows
6-10 shape board – leave one or two rows all the way to top
11-15 start scoring big or flip
16-20 rack up points, get in the lead, leave very little for bonus round

Enjoy,

tomatoguy aka Lee aka 1MAN1BAND