Ignore the 'Scrabble for Gen-Z' moaning: 5 family board games proving collaboration is as fun as competition
Scrabble Together? Games do, and should, change over time. Particularly if they are based on a language that has hundreds of words added to it each year
Trite mainstream culture wars hit the quiet(ish) board game hobby this month, with Mattel’s launch of a new version of Scrabble.
Scrabble Together attempts to make the classic board more collaborative and friendlier to younger players, with gamers teaming up to complete 20 goal cards, which set various wordy challenges, for a collective win. Mattel have said it’s for gamers who find the original ‘intimidating’.
Ah, yes, that’s the trigger word. Cue predictable clacking from certain quarters.
Instead of excitement at getting two games in one box – Scrabble Together is not replacing the standard version; it’s released as a double-sided board with the original – some professionally angry scribes and eye-rolling below-the-line commentators have frothed at the horror – the horror! – of a games manufacturer attempting to make a word game more accessible to younger or inexperienced users.
There have been accusations of ‘dumbing down’: ‘A giant missing of the point,’ predictably huffed The Spectator; The Independent delved into the ‘squabble over Scrabble’ following research that coincided with the launch demonstrating a presumption that Gen-Z players are less competitive than Baby Boomers; the Financial Times captured some of the displeasure in a cartoon. Some expressed more sorrow than grumpiness: ‘Even if I can still have the old version, I still don’t want Scrabble to change,’ lamented the i.
But games do, and should, change over time. Particularly if that game is 75 years old and based on a language that has hundreds of words added to it each year – Merriam-Webster provided 500 more to the Scrabble Players Dictionary in 2022. And most games get that change without a media storm-in-a-teacup, as the 300-plus versions of Monopoly demonstrates.
Sometimes the root of a shift is down to some of its own players’ stubborn intransigence, including those now grumbling. Scrabble – a game that’s marketed as a family favourite – has long suffered from a reputation as a producer of arguments.
However, it hasn’t been helped in the past 20 years or so by family matches between those who play online and gained access to Scrabble dictionaries with little-used, but tactically friendly, tiny words such as ‘qi’, and those who play by the contents of abridged analogue lexicons – which physically can’t contain all the words in the world – who swiftly became ruddy-cheeked incensed by their opponent’s attempts to play such unfamiliar phrases. Using words we’ve never heard of?! The horrid little cheats!
Some have suggested the following house rule: if you can’t define the word, then you can’t play it. Unfortunately, from experience, the Venn diagram of people who suggest this in an attempt to limit others’ maverick wordplay and those who cannot graciously accept the answer, “it’s believed to be the spiritual energy that flows internally through the body and is of importance in some alternate medicines” is a circle.
‘Who needs that extra stress playing a game when a few clicks online will serve up a thousand images of war and ecological disaster?’
Mismatched opponents in ability or tactics, regardless of age, can add to a dispiriting experience for all involved – for example, if someone wants an open Scrabble board to play on for fun word play and their opponent is strategically blocking off potential florid moves and triple letter scores with smaller words.
Who needs that extra stress playing a game when a few clicks online will serve up a thousand images of war and ecological disaster? Not to mention everyone’s opinions. Everyone. All of them. Indeed, the research mentioned above also found that 51% of board gamers play them to tune out from social media.
So, is it any surprise that Mattel switched things up with a new version that attempts to take the heat out of what is, after all, supposed to be an enjoyable pastime? Sure, though the research found the ‘perception’ that Baby Boomers were more competitive than Gen Z (to the tune of 35% to 29% of respondents), people of all ages do enjoy both competition and collaboration.
And, obviously, let’s not be naive: the main factor in the toy goliath’s actions here is ‘making lots of money’ (and, call me a cynic, but if I wanted to do a bit of intergenerational culture-wars stoking for some extra publicity, I’d use the riling word ‘intimidating’ to deliver some ‘snowflake’ vibes in an announcement press release), but clearly it wants to squeeze cash out of a globally recognised intellectual property and has acted on a trend where such splits have made the game less fun.
Because it’s in such competitive games that you find that many of the people complaining about a lack of competition really don’t like competition – not when it’s their own ego under threat. Don’t like your trad games changing, Sir Cuthbert Twifely-Bankvault III, writing in The Strawman Times, who I’ve just made up just to ram home this point as a substitute for all my own anecdotes about friends and family members? Well, perhaps you should have expressed joy rather than grumpily flip over the game board when your nine-year-old nephew outwitted you by playing ‘muzjiks’ over a triple word score in 2012. Now he’s responding to corporate marketing surveys and disrupting your favourite game.
‘Collaborative board games are nothing new and some of the hobby’s most influential modern-day titles such as Pandemic come under this banner’
Scrabble Together – with its teamwork-inspiring strategically played ‘helper’ cards and rules that allow a sliding scale of complexity and difficulty – is an opportunity for different generations to play the game cordially in a different manner. Additionally, rather than the intrinsic advantage adults have over their kids via having more years on the planet to learn more words, it allows all parties to attempt to beat the game together.
It’s not too much of a leap to presume that the gateway then opens for younger players to then try out the more competitive original having laid their letters out in more relaxed conditions.
There is nowt wrong with a bit of competition – readers of the game reviews on this channel will know that our inter-generational games are played keenly, and when my daughter, E, defeats her dear-old dad, she knows she’s earned it. And I in turn am never more proud than when she’s celebrating a victory over her father.
But In the micro-maelstrom of the Scrabble Together debate, a question is raised: what do we play games for. From such discussion, it seems an either/or: teaching resilience, or bringing people together to solve problems.
Guess what: as Scrabble Together’s double-sided board demonstrates: you can have both.
Think it’s dumbing down? Then simply don’t play dumb.
Of course, collaborative board games are nothing new and some of the hobby’s most influential modern-day titles such as Pandemic come under this banner.
Want to work together with your kids to gain victory and inspire a lifelong passion for teamwork and analogue gaming? Here are five of our favourite family co-ops.
Ghost Fightin' Treasure Hunters
Another Mattel release, this from 2013, sees players join forces to rid a haunted house of its undead residents as well as nick all its loot.
Thieving, bad; simple strategic gameplay, good. Things can quickly get out of hand as the ghost’s numbers rise and players get trapped. Brian Yu’s game is a roll-and-mover, but one that’s done well, with teamwork and communication vital to success. And it was good enough to gain the Kinderspiel Des Jahres award in 2014.
The downside: it’s curiously out of print, but one worth tracking down second-hand.
The Adventures of Robin Hood
With its lift-the-flap game board, Michael Menzel’s delightful co-op plays like a choose-your-own-adventure game book, but with more movement options then ‘open the door’ or ‘turn right’.
Players form a band of Merry Men (and Marion) to first free one of their number from the gallows, and then further quest around Sherwood Forest. There are choices to move toward your goal quickly, or hold back and conserve energy for bigger battles, with the board evolving as the story progresses, revealing more secrets.
Lots of innovative mechanisms to love here, and Kosmos earned a Spiel des Jahres nomination for the endeavour in 2021.
Just One
Word play fans will enjoy this simple party game based on a basic premise: Collectively discover the mystery word, but give a unique one-word clue that none of your other players have also thought of, otherwise your hint will be cancelled.
So, want someone to answer ‘snow’ and want as many hints given to the guesser? Frost may be too obvious, so would ‘Jon’ be unpredictable enough to get through to be seen by them, along with one or two ‘chilly’ or ‘icy’ clues?
Zombie Kidz Evolution
Annick Lobet bought in legacy mechanics for this family-friendly co-op, with players forming a band of young friends to aiming to keep the zombie horde from the school gates.
With a double-sided board providing levels of difficulty, like Ghost Fightin' Treasure Hunters, character placement and teamwork are essential to work through the rooms and slay the undead. And with more victories under the team’s belt, stickers are earned, envelopes are opened and the game changes – sometimes making quests easier, sometimes not. You’ll have to play it to find out how.
Slide Quest
A board game that plays like a retro video game, Slide Quest sees up to four players navigate a knight through a kingdom, ridding the realm of bandits and avoiding terrible pitfalls.
Nicolas Bourgoin and Jean-François Rochas innovative game is based on dexterity and co-operation, with levers placed on each side of the game box, tilting the various scenery boards in all directions.
Read our review of Slide Quest here.
Review round-up
This week, me and the kid have mostly been playing…
Extreme Rock Climbers
Reaching for the summit, despite many frequent falls in this vertical tabletop game
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Send It!
Like the idea of mountain biking without the mountains? Play the game of the sport, without worrying about a trip to the hospital.
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Elsewhere on the web
Other tabletop game stories we liked this week:
For World Board Game Day, CNN explored what goes into a game’s creation.
The Guardian delved into the origins of Dungeons & Dragons.