Scrabble but everything is a QUADRUPLE WORD SCORE!

Tired of not scoring enough points? Well, fear no more, for I hereby introduce the highest-scoring variant of all time: every single square on the board is a quadruple word score! Bingos don't score a mere 70 or 80, but hundreds of thousands. How many points can I rack up?

[@AlexDings]

"That's 2560 points, but I'm not sure that's worth it" 😀 Somebody take that soundbite and put it over footage of Mack thinking during a tournament game

[@thundermill7109]

6:03 “256 points which is absolutely nothing might as well just be zero.” Is also pretty good.

[@Starwort]

5:10 'twenty-nine thousand points really is just not a lot'

[@FoxtrotTheorem]

Since bingos dominate the scoring in this game, it seems reasonable to me to calibrate evaluations based off bingos. Let's say a typical bingo in normal scrabble is 72 points and a typical bingo here is 180000 points. It seems reasonable to divide all the scores by 2500 and then try to use regular scrabble judgment. So for example, playing FIVE for 2560 points would be the equivalent of fishing off FIVE in normal scrabble for 1 point, so exchanging looks better. LINTERS and NONORAL for about 28000 points would be worth about 11 points in normal scrabble and ANVILED for about 45000 would be worth about 18 points.

[@mackmeller]

That's a good way to look at it!

[@fusion67]

An idea for another scrabble variant could be to only have the 1 point tiles, so getting rid of all Bs, Cs, Ds, Fs, etc and replacing the missing tiles with more of the traditional 1 pointers proportionally to the frequency they appear normally

[@leonhardeuler675]

I thought of suggesting this the other day, but then I was like "Nah, that's stupid". Let's see if I was right. :p

[@leonhardeuler675]

I think so. Might be cool to do this against Josh though. Quackle clearly didn't get it. Although I think it would be interesting to see if playing off tiles as a burn, rather than exchanging them is better against a competent opponent since they wont can't be used for subsequent bingoes by the opponent.

[@AmaranthRBY]

With the simming at the end actually working properly it'd be interesting to see Champ going at it in this variant, Speedy was honestly garbage hahah

[@michaelmckenna7405]

incredible flex with the manual calculations omg

[@mackmeller]

haha thanks! other than when I said 4^7 was 8,192 instead of 16,384 and it took 4 minutes to correct myself 😆

[@ajaxmajor]

i dont think its ever worth it to play fewer than 7 (or maybe 6) tiles, instead exchanging so u can get those letters later for a crazy score. especially bc quackle isnt gonna take advantage of having more opportunities to score ya know

[@TheBedazzeler]

Well atleast this will be good for the alternate scrabble series spread

[@lucas29476]

Suggestion: Scrabble but half the bag are blanks. It's important to remove some other letters to get down to 50 blanks and 50 other letters. (E.g. cut the distribution in half. For odd numbers: lean on keeping extra high-pointers and losing one-pointers.) Last time with 18 extra blanks (and no removals) the board was too clogged up and we didn't see any crazy 3-blank bingos. Hope this will be fun.

[@mackmeller]

Unfortunately the max I can do is 39 blanks (Quackle crashes with 40+ of any tile), but I'll definitely try that sometime

[@paulcole5435]

With the 1M point goal, I think i would’ve done CON instead of ONTO for the extra bingo line even though AILNO being the worse leave

[@sophiegrey9576]

Just imagine how strong OXYPHENBUTAZONE would be.

[@Firefly256]

Is it possible to set multiple starting squares (the center star tile) on the board?

[@mackmeller]

You mean like you'd be allowed to start in multiple different places on the board? I don't think so, though I could open somewhere missing the star and force Quackle to accept it...

[@loxwjman]

variant suggestions: 1. Make the bag just 4 of every letter + 2 blanks. 2. No E's. (And potentially put all the E's into a terrible vowel like a U if you want a really hard time) ... or just swap them for a manageable but much more difficult game. 3. 100 - 125 space board, not sure how wild it could go, but make it super difficult to even play any words after a few turns potentially. Just a few ideas ... love the content!

[@mackmeller]

one of these (won't spoil which) has already been done, the other two sound great too

[@pandurendradjaja8994]

An idea: What would Scrabble be like if there were NO bonus squares? Would it be a really boring game, or would it just have different strategic/tactical considerations than normal Scrabble?

[@mackmeller]

Yeah I think that would be really interesting, lots of weight on overlaps and bingos. Will try it!

[@jacobklausner7587]

dont know how feasible this is, but i’ve always thought a game of scrabble where the order of drawn tiles is fixed and known to both players at the beginning of the game would lead to some highly tactical play (like an extended endgame, almost)

[@mackmeller]

Hmm, probably not feasible other than in-person, but cool idea!

[@leonhardeuler675]

4^7 = 16,384

[@lucas29476]

indeed 0:58 is off by a factor of 2 (He corrects himself at 4:25)

[@ewallt]

Nice spread.

[@Vynetic]

Are you able to modify the tile values? If so I think a variant where all the tiles are 1 point would be interesting and funny

[@mackmeller]

Yeah, good idea! Zs and Xs would suck in that variant haha

[@SandboxPBuilder-kh7dx]

score inflation is insane

[@xwddydfy_3]

what if you make a game where there are no premium squares. it would feel like overlaps are very important in that kind of game

[@Mizai]

do this + the 39 blanks mod

[@vincehomoki1612]

1:03 16,384*

[@vincehomoki1612]

corrected himself 3 and a half mins later

[@chessblunderer898]

Isn't that just like playing with no bonus squares at all? If you want high scores play with a standard board and multiply the tile values by 400.

[@lucas29476]

No, essentially because 4^2 (= 4 squared) is 16 while 1^2 is still 1. Playing off more tiles here is exponentially rewarded compared to any overlaps (which is only quadrupled once). However, in a no-bonus board, the main word and the overlaps are equally rewarded (by multiplying by 1).