''Boggle'' is a
word game
Word games (also called word game puzzles or word search games) are spoken, board, or video games often designed to test ability with language or to explore its properties.
Word games are generally used as a source of entertainment, but can ad ...
invented by Allan Turoff
and originally distributed by
Parker Brothers
Parker Brothers (known by Parker outside of North America) was an American toy and game manufacturer which in 1991 became a brand of Hasbro. More than 1,800 games were published under the Parker Brothers name since 1883. Among its products wer ...
.
The game is played using a plastic grid of lettered
dice, in which players look for words in sequences of adjacent letters.
Rules
![Boggle_examples](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1b/Boggle_examples.svg)
One player begins the game by shaking a covered tray of 16 cubic dice, each with a different letter printed on each of its sides. The dice settle into a 4×4 tray so that only the top letter of each cube is visible. After they have settled into the tray, a three-minute
sand timer
An hourglass (or sandglass, sand timer, sand clock or egg timer) is a device used to measure the passage of time. It comprises two glass bulbs connected vertically by a narrow neck that allows a regulated flow of a substance (historically sand) ...
is started and all players simultaneously begin the main phase of play.
Each player searches for words that fit the following criteria:
* Words must be at least three letters in length.
* Each letter after the first must be a horizontal, vertical, or diagonal neighbor of the one before it.
* No individual letter cube may be used more than once in a word.
* No capitalized or hyphenated words are allowed.
Multiple forms of the same word are allowed, such as singular/plural forms and other derivations. Each player records all the words they find by writing on a private sheet of paper. After three minutes have elapsed, all players must immediately stop writing and the game enters the scoring phase.
In the scoring phase, each player reads off their list of discovered words. If two or more players wrote the same word, it is removed from all players' lists. Any player may challenge the validity of a word, in which case a previously nominated
dictionary is used to verify or refute it. Once all duplicates and invalid words have been eliminated, points are awarded based on the length of each remaining word in a player's list. The winner is the player whose point total is highest, with any ties typically broken by a count of long words.
One cube is printed with "Qu". This is because ''
Q'' is nearly always followed by ''
U'' in English words (see
exceptions), and if there were a ''Q'' in ''Boggle'', it would be challenging to use if a ''U'' did not, by chance, appear next to it. For the purposes of scoring, ''Qu'' counts as two letters; for example, ''
squid'' would score two points (for a five-letter word) despite being formed from a chain of only four cubes. Early versions of the game had a "Q" without the accompanying "u".
Merriam-Webster publishes the ''
Official Scrabble Players Dictionary
The ''Official Scrabble Players Dictionary'' or OSPD is a dictionary developed for use in the game Scrabble, by speakers of American and Canadian English.
History
Background and creation
The ''Official Scrabble Players Dictionary'' was first ...
'', which is also suitable for ''Boggle''. This dictionary includes all variant forms of words up to eight letters in length. A puzzle book entitled ''100 Boggle Puzzles (Improve Your Game)'' offering 100 game positions was published in the
UK in 2003 but is no longer in print.
Different versions of ''Boggle'' have varying distributions of letters. For example, a more modern version in the UK has easier letters, such as only one ''
K'', but an older version (with a yellow box, from 1986) has two Ks and a generally more awkward letter distribution.
Using the sixteen cubes in a standard ''Boggle'' set, the list of
longest words that can be formed includes ''
inconsequentially'', ''
quadricentennial
An anniversary is the date on which an event took place or an institution was founded in a previous year, and may also refer to the commemoration or celebration of that event. The word was first used for Catholic feasts to commemorate saints. ...
s'', and ''
sesquicentennials'', all seventeen-letter words made possible by ''q'' and ''u'' appearing on the same face of one cube.
Words within words are allowed, such as "mast" and "aster" within "master". Neither the cubes nor the board may be touched while the timer is running.
Game variants
![Boggle (2041108449)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/32/Boggle_%282041108449%29.jpg)
Parker Brothers has introduced several licensed variations on the game. , only ''Boggle Junior'' and ''Travel Boggle'' (also marketed as ''Boggle Folio'') continue to be manufactured and marketed in North America alongside the standard ''Boggle'' game, apart from a licensed keychain miniature version. ''Boggle Junior'' is a much-simplified version intended for young children. ''Boggle Travel'' is a car-friendly version of the standard 4×4 set. The compact, zippered case includes pencils and small pads of paper, as well as an electronic timer, and notably, a cover made from a soft plastic that produces much less noise when the board is shaken.
''Big Boggle'', later marketed as ''Boggle Master'' and ''Boggle Deluxe'', featured a 5×5 tray, and disallowed three-letter words. Some editions of the ''Big Boggle'' set included an adapter that could convert the larger grid into a standard 4×4 Boggle grid. In the
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the European mainland, continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...
, Hasbro UK released ''Super Boggle'' in 2004 (now discontinued), which features both the 4×4 and 5×5 grid and an electronic timer that flashes to indicate the start and finish. Despite the game's popularity in North America, no version of ''Boggle'' offering a 5×5 grid was marketed outside Europe for an extended period until 2011, when Winning Moves Games USA revived the ''Big Boggle'' name for a new version. Their variant features a two-letter die with popular letter combinations such as Qu, Th and In.
In 2008, Parker Brothers released a self-contained version of the game with the dice sealed inside a plastic unit and featuring an integrated timer. Although the older version has been discontinued, some retailers refer to the newer one as "Boggle Reinvention" to avoid confusion.
In 2012, Winning Moves Games USA released a 6×6 version of the game called ''Super Big Boggle''. In addition to the two-letter dice with popular letter combinations, there is also a die containing three faces which are solid squares. These solid squares represent a word stop, which is simply a space that may not be used in any word. The other changes are that the time limit was increased from three minutes to four minutes, three-letter words are no longer allowed, and there is a modified scoring scheme, outlined below.
Other ''Boggle'' variants have included:
* A version of the standard 4×4 set that included a special red "Boggle challenge cube", featuring six relatively uncommon letters. Bonus points are awarded for all words making use of the red cube.
* ''Boggle'' CD-ROM, a version for
Windows
Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for ser ...
, produced and marketed by Hasbro Interactive, including both 4×4 and 5×5 versions, several 3-D versions, and facilities allowing up to four players to compete directly over the Internet.
* ''Body Boggle'', which is more akin to ''
Twister
Twister may refer to:
Weather
* Tornado
Aviation
* Pipistrel Twister, a Slovenian ultralight trike
* Silence Twister, a German homebuilt aircraft design
* Wings of Change Twister, an Austrian paraglider design
Entertainment
* ''Twister'' (1989 ...
'' than it is to standard ''Boggle''. Two players work together as a team, using their hands and feet to spell words on a large floor mat containing pre-printed ''Boggle'' letters.
* ''Boggle Bowl'', in which players roll their own dice and compete to build longer words, in order to move their token toward their goal on a (bowl-shaped) playing area. Similar to Scrabble, the play area has special spaces, but here they alter the play for the next round.
* A 1998 game show
pilot episode hosted by
Bill Rafferty that was not picked up for a full production season.
* ''
Boggle
''Boggle'' is a word game invented by Allan Turoff and originally distributed by Parker Brothers. The game is played using a plastic grid of lettered dice, in which players look for words in sequences of adjacent letters.
Rules
One player begi ...
'', an interactive game show hosted by
Wink Martindale
Winston Conrad "Wink" Martindale (born December 4, 1933) is an American disc jockey, radio personality, game show host, and television producer. In his six-decade career, he is best known for hosting '' Gambit'' from 1972 to 1976 (and again fro ...
. It aired on
The Family Channel (now
ABC Family) in 1994, replacing the interactive version of ''
Trivial Pursuit
''Trivial Pursuit'' is a board game
Board games are tabletop games that typically use . These pieces are moved or placed on a pre-marked board (playing surface) and often include elements of table, card, role-playing, and miniatures gam ...
''.
* ''Coggle'', which functions similarly to ''Boggle'' but involves creating a word to fit a particular theme. Was mainly aimed at the French and Canadian market.
* ''Boggle Flash''. An electronic version of ''Boggle'', but consists of five tiles in which one to ten players make words by swapping tiles. This product is sold in the United States under the name ''Scrabble Flash''.
* ''Foggle'', where the 16 dice have to be used to form valid mathematical equations.
Numerous unofficial computer versions and variants of the game are available. By 1989, users of
MIT
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the m ...
's
Project Athena
Project Athena was a joint project of MIT, Digital Equipment Corporation, and IBM to produce a campus-wide distributed computing environment for educational use. It was launched in 1983, and research and development ran until June 30, 1991. , A ...
competed in the
online game ''mboggle''.
In 2013, ''
Ruzzle
''Ruzzle'' is a mobile game developed by Swedish gaming company MAG Interactive and was first published in the Apple Store in March 2012. '', a mobile phone game based on ''Boggle'', topped the most-downloaded iPhone apps chart. Other games similar to or influenced by ''Boggle'' include ''
Bananagrams
''Bananagrams'' is a word game invented by Abraham Nathanson and Rena Nathanson of Cranston, Rhode Island, wherein lettered tiles are used to spell words.
Nathanson conceived and developed the idea for the game with the help of his family. Th ...
'', ''
Bookworm
Bibliophilia or bibliophilism is the love of books. A bibliophile or bookworm is an individual who loves and frequently reads and/or collects books.
Profile
The classic bibliophile is one who loves to read, admire and collect books, often ama ...
'', ''
Dropwords'', ''
Letterpress
Letterpress printing is a technique of relief printing. Using a printing press, the process allows many copies to be produced by repeated direct impression of an inked, raised surface against sheets or a continuous roll of paper. A worker com ...
'', ''
Puzzlage'', ''
SpellTower'', ''
Word Factory'', ''
Wordquest'', ''
Word Racer'', ''
WordSpot
''WordSpot'' is a fast-paced word search game designed by Russell Ginns and
published by Front Porch Classics.https://www.amazon.com/dp/B002AXUI16
Gameplay
Players use transparent tokens to highlight words found on a board of wooden letter t ...
'', ''
Word Streak with Friends
''Word Streak'' (formerly ''Scramble with Friends'') is a word game developed by Zynga with Friends for iOS and Android and released in January 2012. Gameplay is similar to that of ''Boggle—''players try to find as many words as possible in a ...
'', ''
WordTwist'', and ''
Zip-It''.
Club and tournament play
While not as widely institutionally established as ''
Scrabble
''Scrabble'' is a word game in which two to four players score points by placing tiles, each bearing a single letter, onto a game board divided into a 15×15 grid of squares. The tiles must form words that, in crossword fashion, read left t ...
'', several clubs have been established for the purpose of organizing ''Boggle'' play. Official ''Boggle'' clubs exist at a number of educational institutions, including the
Dartmouth Union of Bogglers at
Dartmouth College
Dartmouth College (; ) is a private research university in Hanover, New Hampshire. Established in 1769 by Eleazar Wheelock, it is one of the nine colonial colleges chartered before the American Revolution. Although founded to educate Native ...
, the
Western Oregon University
Western Oregon University (WOU) is a public university in Monmouth, Oregon. It was originally established in 1856 by Disciples of Christ pioneers as Monmouth University. Subsequent names included Oregon State Normal School, Oregon College of E ...
Boggle Club, the
University of Michigan
, mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth"
, former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821)
, budget = $10.3 billion (2021)
, endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...
Boggle Club, Berkeley Boggle Club at the University of California, Berkeley, CCA Boggle Club at Canyon Crest Academy, and
Grinnell College
Grinnell College is a private liberal arts college in Grinnell, Iowa, United States. It was founded in 1846 when a group of New England Congregationalists established the Trustees of Iowa College.
Grinnell has the fifth highest endowment-to-stu ...
Boggle Club.
Unlike ''Scrabble'', there is no national or international governing or rule-making body for ''Boggle'' competition and no official tournament regulations exist.
When it comes to creating ''Boggle'' games for tournament play, most of the time it is done by special software designed to generate completely random and probably fair boards, using words oftentimes pre-selected by the officiating committee.
See also
*
''Boggle'' (game show)
*
Peggy Hill
Margaret J. "Peggy" Hill ( Platter) (February 6, born 1954) is a fictional character in the Fox animated series ''King of the Hill'', voiced by Kathy Najimy. She is the matriarch of the Hill family and the wife of series protagonist Hank Hill, m ...
, a ''
King of the Hill
''King of the Hill'' is an American animated sitcom created by Mike Judge and Greg Daniels for the Fox Broadcasting Company. It aired its original non-syndicated run from January 12, 1997, to September 13, 2009, and centers on the Hills, an Am ...
'' character known for her devotion to competitive Boggle
* ''
Perquackey''
References
External links
Fun and Games with the English Language4×4 ''Boggle'' board generator and solver by Dr. Phillip M. Feldman
''Boggle'' SolverFast multiple languages Boggle word solver by M. van Moorselaar
''Serpentine''Online multiplayer ''Boggle'' game
{{Hasbro
Board games introduced in 1972
Dice games
Multiplayer games
Paper-and-pencil games
Parker Brothers games
Party board games
Tabletop games
Word board games
Word games