[lojban] Scrabble, word games in Lojban

[Rob Speer <lojban-out@lojban.org>]

On Mon, Jun 16, 2003 at 08:08:02PM +0200, Arnt Richard Johansen wrote:
> There are two proposals for doing this.
> 
> http://www.lojban.org/files/papers/scrabble.unf
> http://www.lojban.org/wiki/index.php/Lojban%20Scrabble

Right. That second one is mine, and let me point out that I've never
gotten to play-test it, given the weird assortment of two-letter tiles
it requires.

I messed with the data files of Networdz (a popular Windows Scrabble
program that supports other languages, though its documentation on how
to do so sucks) to play the first version of Lojban Scrabble against the
computer (and also having the computer play itself). The game turns into
forming diagonal lines of two-letter cmavo, since that's an extremely
easy way to put down a rare letter like Z, X, or F.

Taking cmavo out of the dictionary solved that problem, except that it
made the game _very_ difficult. The computer playing against itself made
fascinating arrangements of criss-crossing gismu, most of which I had no
idea what they meant. It also exchanged tiles a lot. Also, words could
no longer be adjacent to other words.

A Y or apostrophe on your rack was the kiss of death, since you'd have to
use it to make not just any lujvo, but one that was in the lujvo list.
If any valid lujvo were an allowable play (not possible with Networdz'
static dictionary), that would not be so much of a problem. You couldn't
even get rid of them with the word Y'Y, which turned out in the original
Lojban Scrabble to be more popular than QAT is in English.

Perhaps Scrabble is just not cut out for Lojban. A Lojbanic word game
might have to take a different form. What about Lojban Boggle? Finding
gismu and the occasional lujvo on a 5x5 Boggle board may not be too
difficult - and I know I've spotted some accidentally when playing
Boggle in English.

-- 
mu'o mi'e rab.spir