Computer Scrabble

Your Sinclair

Max Phillips

FAX BOX Title: Scrabble Publisher: Leisure Genius Phone: [redacted] Price: £14.95 Reviewer: Max Phillips Playing Scrabble is always a nerve-wrecking experience. As a small kid I used to knock the board off the table. When I grew up, I chucked dictionaries at people. Now I just split-up with girlfriends over it. I hated it when this program beat me on a Speccy. And now it's back again in a QL version with an expanded dictionary and the power of a baby 68K behind it. Fear. And loathing. It turns out not to be so bad at all. It's the same professionally produced program - it looks really pretty and is simplicity to use. You can have up to four players, any or all of which can be the QL. And there are eight levels of play. But there's enough wrong with the game for me not to be too offended. It says it knows all the 2,3 and 4 letter words in the world and you're warned that some of them are 'obscure and unusual'. So much so that there's a few I still haven't managed to find in any dictionary. Besides, it challenges 'Zen' - hardly an obscure play. What I really disliked though is the tight game it plays on the higher levels - constantly trying to build up blocks of two letter words and not playing for the corners. This is not a very sporting style. Besides, it means the program often gives all the triple-words away making it easy to win. So I can't complain - it's a classic game, a classic program and it's longer-lasting than most games tapes. But experienced Scrabble players may find it a bit of a toy. Then again, maybe I'm just a bad loser.

Sinclair UserSinclair User Classic

Overall 5/5

Publisher: Leisure Genius Programmers: Leisure Genius Price: £14.95 Scrabble is one of those games computers ought to play really well. The basic requirements are a large vocabulary, and the power to search all the permutations quickly in order to decide on the best one. The reason it hasn't appeared in many different versions on computers is probably that J W Spear, which holds the copyright, is zealous in protecting its classic game. The first Scrabble program was licensed to the Spectrum, and programmed by Psion. It remains one of the finest Spectrum games of all time. QL Scrabble is quite a different program, by Leisure Genius. You might be forgiven for thinking it was just a conversion, but that's only because two official versions of a well-known game are bound to look much alike. The official Scrabble reference book is Chambers 20th Century Dictionary, and QL Scrabble knows over 20,000 words from that, including lots of weird two and three letter words which are only ever found on Scrabble boards. And how about things like gadi or glia? I reckon there are some words whose definitions should always remain a total mystery. You can play with up to four players, any or all of which can be taken over by the computer. When entering a computer player, you can also set its skill level from one to eight. From level five onwards the computer will run through all the two, three and four letter words in the dictionary - when it has a duff hand, that can take some time. Fortunately, you can cut down on the time taken by playing against the clock. You can set a maximum time for each move ranging from ten seconds to ten minutes - tournament time is two minutes. The sound effects can be turned on and off as you please. Lightning Scrabble is a thoroughly punitive business against three computer players, but lots of fun all the same. Options are all in this sort of game, and other choices include watching the computer suss out its best move, looking at all the players' racks of letters, and calling up tables of the number of letters and their values. You can also ask the computer for a hint, but that docs take rather a long time, and there is no guarantee that the hint will be the best choice available. QL Scrabble is an excellent game, perfectly suited to the capabilities of the machine, and with enough options to tailor the game to your own demands and abilities. I take on trust Leisure Genius' claim to have written a completely different program from the Psion original, and given that have no hesitation in awarding it a Classic. It is reasonably priced, well-presented, has Load and Save facilities, and should give Scrabble fans endless enjoyment - as well as sharpening the wits of anybody who dares to take on the all-powerful QL at a game it plays with considerable brilliance.

ZX Computing

QL SOFTWARE Not much has been released for the QL of late, but what there is seems to be getting better... QL SCRABBLE Psion produced an excellent version of Scrabble for the Spectrum a couple of years ago, and now Leisure Genius have produced one for the QL. The game itself is almost identical to Psion's Spectrum version though the extra memory has allowed the programmers to cram around 20,000 words into the QL, which gives it a huge vocabulary to play with. Up to four players can take part and the computer can control any or all of these, playing on any of eight skill levels. I found that the first couple of levels weren't that hard to keep up with, but on higher levels its ability to create words like oojlmaflip with incredibly high scores looks suspiciously like cheating to me. Graphically, the layout of the board and letter racks is clear and quite colourful and the option which allows you to watch the computer 'thinking', as it tries out different words on the board is fascinating to watch. Personally I'd rather play Scrabble lying on the floor with a packet of biscuits but there's no denying that this is one game that does the QL justice for a change.