c4countdown

I was trying to come up with the best version of Scrabble that incorporates the best elements of Countdown too.
So far I have come up with.
1. Using the OED as the source dictionary
2. Picking tiles from seperated vowel and consonant bags.
3. 30 seconds per move

I was wondering if 9 tiles on a rack would be better than 7 but that might make a bonus (ie using all your letters) much more difficult.

I'm looking for sensible ideas and also whether people on here would be interesting in playing in a proposed festival of Countdown and Scrabble that I want to organise when Covid is a distant memory.
Including versions of Countdown using CSW (including blank tiles)

This is a cool idea. You could actually make two different games. Yours seems to be Scrabble with countdown elements. You could also do Countdown with scrabble elements, like regular countdown but with the letter points from scrabble. You get points for the length of the word plus the letter values.

I have other ideas for how to incorporate things like double word or triple letter scores but it's hard to describe in writing. I need a visual aid.

But yes. More ideas to get Scrountdown and Countabble off the ground.

You could have another set of cards saying double letter etc that you take out after 3 letters say

Multiplying any score by the number of tiles placed would go a long way to balancing the tyranny of high-scoring short word plays.

Ian Volante wrote: ↑Fri Oct 29, 2021 12:07 pm Multiplying any score by the number of tiles placed would go a long way to balancing the tyranny of high-scoring short word plays.

You wouldn't need a 50 point bonus with that innovation

Mark James wrote: ↑Fri Oct 29, 2021 8:24 am This is a cool idea. You could actually make two different games. Yours seems to be Scrabble with countdown elements. You could also do Countdown with scrabble elements, like regular countdown but with the letter points from scrabble. You get points for the length of the word plus the letter values.

I have other ideas for how to incorporate things like double word or triple letter scores but it's hard to describe in writing. I need a visual aid.

But yes. More ideas to get Scrountdown and Countabble off the ground.

And if you like, you could include an option to exchange letters like in Scrabble. I guess it would be done electronically, with a UI to select letters to exchange and having the new letters come up while the clock is running. But just like in Scrabble, exchanging letters would constitute your turn, thus rendering the feature useless but merely there to catch out anybody who forgets this fact.

Had a go at this - have fun folks!

https://www.apterous.org/to_tourney.php?tourney=3913