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 Excellent travel game Nov 19, 2009
Great value and excellent travel game.
Provides hours of fun for the whole family
and is great when on trips since the whole
family can play and it's easy to slip in
your bag since it's small.
 Quick-play version of Scrabble, but not without a small problem Jun 04, 2009
Someone on here mentioned that Scrabble Express is, per its published rules system, "broken" because the first player to play off the TWS will most certainly get to play it again and again and win quickly. The same was mentioned for the center star square, a DWS, which can be similarly abused by the player going first.
This analysis is correct and can make the game one-sided. After purchasing this game, as I have played the original game professionally, it would make sense for players to develop a series of "house rules" to overcome these issues. Here are my own suggestions:
1) If a player hits a TWS, they should score the play, then clear the ENTIRE board of dice and have the next player begin again at the center square.
2) To make the center square less abusive, it should double the value of the first word played there ONLY ONCE, but be a regular non-bonus square thereafter. This would seem to encourage players to move away from the center and bring the other DWS's and other bonus squares into play. When the dice would be cleared from the board entirely, then it could be a true DWS again.
3) Regarding the "Qu" die face, while it kind of sucks that it's not just "Q," it should be left the way it is, but perhaps a bingo involving this face could be considered valid with only 5 other die faces, since "Qu" is still 2 letters, for a total of 7. In other words, one could consider playing a 6-die-face, 7-letter "Qu" word a bingo. (One example could be ESQuIRE.) Perhaps you could also have an additional bonus for the inclusion of a 7th die face to use this way for making an "eight-letter" word.
These problems aside, it makes for a fun, short game. What I particularly like is that it forces players to learn the short words (2-4 letters), which make up roughly 70-75% of your score in the original game. Note that the two middle row/middle column DLS are positioned three, rather than four (in the boardgame), squares away from the center. This makes four-letter words very potent to begin the game, especially if you roll letters with face values of at least 3 points. Four-letter J, K, X, and Z words and "five-letter" "Qu" words will be devastating on turn one. Opportunities to score this high in the board game are sometimes hard to come by.
The focus for short words is a good one here, because even after doing some personal play-testing of my own, to get a feel for the mechanics, and looking at the letter distribution on the combined 72 die faces, it would appear that getting a bingo roll is very difficult, much more so than drawing a bingo rack from a 100-tile bag at the beginning of the board game. I did once roll AEIMNST to make the word INMATES, but that was the only bingo roll out of about 300-400 rolls of seven dice. It is very easy to roll the letters that are non-conducive to bingos in Scrabble Express, simply because it is easy to draw the dice containing those faces.
It's otherwise a very nicely designed and packaged game, and is easily packed in a small bag or backpack for road travel. The cylindrical pod is a nice touch and I think the quartered board is attractive. All in all, a nice little game for a good price.
1 of 1 found the following review helpful:
Great fun! Dec 29, 2008
I bought one each for my college age son and daughter. We played it as a family on Christmas Day and thought it was great fun. It is quicker and not as intimidating to non-scrabble players as the original. The carrying case makes it easy to tote around too. I looked for it last Christmas in stores but couldn't find it. Amazon has it at a great price. Highly recommend.
0 of 1 found the following review helpful:
Better than Scrabble Dec 12, 2008
This game is quick, entertaining and educational. It is also very portable. It is just great.
Scrabble Express Dec 12, 2008
Great game, more portable and can be played anywhere. Would increase your spelling abality and math.
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