words

In this classic word game, players use their seven drawn letter-tiles to form words on the gameboard. Each word laid out earns points based on the commonality of the letters used, with certain board spaces giving bonuses. But a word can only be played if it uses at least one already-played tile or adds to an already-played word. This leads to slightly tactical play, as potential words are rejected because they would give an opponent too much access to the better bonus spaces.

Skip-a-cross was licensed by Selchow & Righter and manufactured by Cadaco. Both games have identical rules but Skip-a-cross has tiles and racks made of cardboard instead of wood. The game was also published because not enough Scrabble games were manufactured to meet the demand.

Note: We have two "1953 classic edition" copies that are available upon request. See game associate for details.

In Word on the Street, players – either individually or in teams – try to claim letter tiles from the game board.

To set up the game, seventeen letter tiles (all the consonants in English other than j, q, x, and z) are placed in a strip down the center of the game board – the median strip of the street, if you will, which has two "traffic lanes" on either side of it. On a turn, one team is presented with a category such as "types of fruit" or "something a player is wearing", and that team has thirty seconds to come up with an answer in that category, then move the letters in that word toward their side of the game board. Any letters in the word that are not on the game board are skipped. If the answer were "pineapple", for example, the team would move P, N, P, P and L.

If a team moves a letter off the game board, it has claimed that letter and that tile will not move for the remainder of the game. The first team to claim eight letter tiles wins!